


A Soul Eater in a Pine Tree

by Sleepmarshes



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: AU, Christmas, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepmarshes/pseuds/Sleepmarshes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xmas fic. AU. Maka 'Grinch' Albarn receives a tree as an early Christmas gift, and everything takes a turn for the weird. Rated for suggestive content. SoMa, TsuStar, SteinScience, and others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 12 Grinches Griping

"You've never had a Christmas tree," Tsubaki repeats slowly.

"I haven't. Why would you cut down a perfectly good tree and drag it in your house in the first place? And then put junk all over it! It's like... arbor cruelty, if you think about it. Plus it's a fire hazard."

Maka watches her neighbor sigh, locking her mailbox in the apartment lobby. "You're crazy."

" _Christmas_ is crazy," Maka corrects. "It doesn't even make sense!" She thumbs through her junk mail, sorting bills from advertisements. "Everyone gets all homicidal about finding the right gifts for people they don't even like, and then they go to parties to get wasted off eggnog. Oh, and Jesus is in there, somewhere," she adds, with a sarcastic, casual wave of her hand.

Tsubaki Nakatsukasa snorts, shaking her head. "You're still coming to our Christmas party though, right?"

Maka tries her best to hide her grimace, but her friend catches it anyway, frowning. Through grit teeth she admits, "Tsubakiiii, you know I hate socializing."

"Oh come on, Maka! You know Christmas is really important to Black Star, and he wants everyone to be there, including 'Grinch Albarn'," she says, nudging Maka lightly with her hip.

She replies flatly, "Joy to the world." Maka sighs loudly, turning from Tsubaki to make her way up the stairs to her apartment. "I'll think about it." Suddenly, she stops, turning back with curiosity. "Why's Christmas such a big deal for him, anyhow?"

After a strange silence, a gleam enters Tsubaki's eyes. "I met him on Christmas. Do you remember?"

Maka scrunches her eyebrows. "I... I guess? I dunno, that was like five years ago, wasn't it? Hey, wasn't that the time your tree caught on fire?"

Tsubaki smiles. "Yeah... Hey, you don't work tomorrow, right?"

"...Who wants to know?"

"Stay home. I'm gonna have a tree delivered to you."

"WHAT. Did we not just discuss how your trees are fire hazards?!"


	2. 11 Meddlers Meddling

Well. Staying home is easy enough. It's nice to have a day off work so late in the Christmas season, and she's grateful. She takes advantage of the little gas fireplace in the corner of her living room, warming her chilled toes near the fire.

'Grinch' Albarn? She's not that bad, is she? She doesn't go out of her way to ruin other people's Christmas... she just doesn't feel like participating, that's all.

Though she does like giving people presents on birthdays and such, buying a bunch for several people at once is daunting. And she has no idea what to get for others this year, anyhow.

Maka blows a forelock of hair out of her eyes and to the ceiling. It falls back into her line of vision, predictably. She has a gut sinking feeling she'll be last-minute Christmas shopping in the hordes of homicidal holiday cheer this year.

_BANG BANG BANG!_

Maka starts, jumping from her spot on the floor, wondering if she needs to find her baseball bat.

"Open up, this is N-P-P-D!"

She harrumphs, recognizing Tsubaki's boyfriend's very distinctive voice immediately. She tries to calm her startled heart, irritated. "NPPD? What on earth is that?" Maka asks, sliding the deadbolt and opening the door to a face full of pine needles and neon blue hair.

"North Pole Police Department, Grinch-face."

Maka scowls at Black Star, making room for him to enter the apartment. "When she said she'd have a tree delivered, I didn't know you'd be the delivery service."

"Yeah, well, I've known this one since it was a sapling, so I thought I ought to deliver it myself," the young man says, twisting the tree in his arms and trying to fit through the narrow doorway.

"You've... known it? What is it, your cousin?"

Black Star gives her a look between fluffy branches. "Don't you know? Sid and Mira run a tree farm outside of town."

"What? Since when?"

He continues to struggle through her door. "Since... I dunno. The Jurassic period? Mira still won't tell me how old she is..."

"Do you... Here. No, turn to the side," she says, trying to direct him but failing. "Do you need help? Seriously."

"Black Star the Mightier can handle a mere puny twig such of this pathetic caliber!" he retorts, shoving his way through. A lone branch ends up slapping him in the face.

"Hah! This tree must know you as well," she comments.

Black Star glowers a the tree a little. "If Tsubaki wasn't bribing me with godly turkey legs, I'd snap that stupid branch off your face!"

Maka shuts the door after him. "Earth to Dork Star: it's just a tree."

"Hah. That's what you think! Oop," he grunts, setting the tree down and leaning it against a bare wall. He rubs his hands on his jeans. "Party's at five thirty on Friday. Show up. Don't ditch us like you always do. Do not disappoint your god!"

"Yeah, yeah," she mutters, crossing her arms and rubbing the backs of them to ward off the cold the front door had let in. "Thanks for the tree," Maka adds quietly to the side.

"Sure. You could use some quality company," he says as he lets himself out of her apartment. "Later, Twiggy!"

"Wh-? ...Bye." Maka locks the door after him, moving stand in her small living room (made even smaller by its newest resident), one socked food idly scratching the back of her calf. What is she supposed to do with this thing? And why does Black Star consider a tree 'quality company'?

Her short, dark colored pet cat, Blair, rubs along her shins a moment before slowly investigating the latest fire hazard of their apartment: a slice of freakin' forest.

"You're braver than I am, Blair. Check for squirrels while you're in there." Maka racks her brain for how Christmas trees are supposed to look like. She knows they're covered with lights and gaudy shiny things and usually have something ornate at the top, but she'd never taken the time to actually look at ornaments before.

The only tree Maka Albarn can remember ever helping decorate was Tsubaki's, and that had been the first year she'd met the young woman. She tries to recall what it looked like, but all that comes to mind is the inferno it had become on Christmas Eve, set off by a shorted light bulb or something.

Even if she could remember what it looked like pre-detonation, she certainly didn't have any decorations just sitting around the apartment to use.

...She could just leave it as it is. It's not like she's expecting any company, and buying ornaments would just be a waste. Why bother?

Blair jumps in the tree, pine needles and tan colored pine cones scattering to the carpet. "Ah! Blair! Get out of there, you're making a mess." The cat only buries deeper, the tree rustling loudly. It sways dangerously to one side, and with alarm, Maka realizes it would fall in the lit fireplace.

"AH. NO. NO FIRES ALLOWED!" Maka cries, lunging for the toppling tree and feeling every possible prickly branch catch in her hair and sweater, stabbing her skin. "Blair! Get out of the damn tree!" Five minutes in her apartment and the damned thing had already almost combusted!

_BANG BANG BANG!_

"Oh God, not again," she grumbles, trying to both upright the tree and untangle herself at the same time, but making very little progress. "No one is home!" she yells.

"It's your father. Open up!"

She'd rather have the North Pole Police Department break in. Maka leans heavily against the tree, glowering at it's abundant, pokey, uncomfortable needles. She calls out, "I'm still not speaking to you!"

Spluttering noises can be heard from the other side of her front door. "I brought your car back and even put new tires on it-"

A brain vessel sizzles and bursts behind her eyes. "You stole my car to get away from your floozy's husband, and left me- who is no longer your daughter, by the way- to explain to a very upset pro-wrestler why you- who is no longer my father, by the way- was sleeping with his wife!" She ignores his blubbering excuses while angrily trying to right the stupid tree, and a little white tag hanging from a branch directly in front of her face catches her eye.

"But darling, your father was going to be-"

"I don't have a father!" she barks reflexively, and then quietly reads the tag. 'Property of Soul... Eater'? Oh, that's not ominous at all, of course not. She will _definitely_ live to see next year.

Though now her options are to hang around this creepy tree or to get her car keys back from her father. Maka finally moves the tree far enough to lean on the wall and turns off her fireplace.

Then she notices the stump at the foot of the tree. ...Shouldn't that be in water?


	3. 10 Lights a-Flashing

She stands amidst multiple aisles and waist-high bins of holiday paraphernalia, senses swarmed by cinnamon and remakes of popular Christmas songs.

Maka hears a crash in the distance, and wonders if it's her father climbing the tallest shelves to find her the best tree stand. She tugs her fluffy beanie more firmly over her head, trying to block out the rattling sounds. Looking at the hundreds of ornaments before her, she feels dizzy. There are so many colors and designs and shapes that her eyes can't stay still and land on just one. Tiny Santas, brightly colored foam birds, glittering metal snowflakes, and blown glass ...things that she has no name for shine and blind her. How is she supposed to pick anything?

"Clean-up on aisle seven, please."

Her mother, before the separation, had put up a tree every year, but Maka had been young at the time, ignorant to any significance of style or sentiment to the decorations the woman had used. She vaguely recalls drinking cider on the floor, near the lower boughs, but that is all.

"Clean-up on aisle seven, please."

Dispirited, Maka sighs, turning from the multicolored wall of cheer and letting her gaze float to the ceiling of the department store. Dangling lights, which she assumes are meant to emulate icicles, glitter quietly above. Tsubaki had used lights like that, hadn't she? Maka remembers the irritating process of untangling them for her tree that first year.

" _They_ _'_ _re_ _like_ _little_ _stars_ _,_ _aren_ _'_ _t_ _they_ _?_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _kind_ _of_ _..._ _an_ _astronomy_ _nerd_ _,_ _to_ _be_ _honest_ _."  
_ " _And all the blue?"_

She remembers suddenly, the sky blue ribbons and the bright star in Tsubaki's arms as she climbed a step-ladder to reach the top. The tree had looked balanced and beautiful by the time she finished, not overwhelming at all.

Maka can handle that, probably. She can just pick a color or two and stick with it, and hopefully avoid those creepy nutcracker things with beards, or anything else over the top. Something simple.

"Maka Albarn, please come to the front desk, your ...father is looking for you. Maka Albarn."

With a groan, Maka pulls her hat even more snugly over her head. She shuffles to another aisle, finding a daunting amount of little boxes of Christmas lights. ...There are so many different kinds of these too! Big lights, little lights, lights with decapitated snowman heads stuck on them- aren't there any just plain, normal lights?!

She slaps a hand over her eyes and thrusts her arm out at random, grabbing the first box her fingers touch and tossing it carelessly into her hand basket. Okay, that's over with. Now to find some streamers or ribbons or something of that nature.

"Oh," she blurts out, eyes falling on a white, fluffy loops of ...rope? Her hand reaches out to look at the display tag. 'Garland' is all it says. She makes a face, confused. Isn't a garland a crown? Maka eyes the cotton-colored garland critically.

Well, it's not that bad. Snow is even normal on evergreen trees.

"Maka Albarn, please come t- Sir, excuse me, you can't just- **Makaaaaa** **!** **Where** **is** **my** **baby** **girl** **!?"**

She curses under her breath and grabs two big loops of the garland, hoping it'll be long enough to drape on her tree and she won't be forced to show her face at this place again.

* * *

The lights are multicolored. She had not anticipated this. After reluctantly letting her father into her apartment, and allowing him to help her put the tree into the tree stand and vaguely listening to his advice about watering, Maka holds a bundle of lights in her hand, already plugged in to see if they all work. A festive rainbow of colors glows in her palms.

Well, so much for sticking to a color scheme. Spirit Albarn critically scrutinizes the evergreen while she tries to untangle the tiny lights.

"You know, this tree is kind of crooked. Who picked this out?"

Maka answers slowly, concentrating on the mess in her hands. "Tsubaki, I guess... Or Black Star." She suddenly looks up, putting the bundle in her lap. "Wait. What's wrong with it?"

"It's crooked!" her father exclaims, hands raising and coming to a point above his head and slightly to the right. "Look, it's fluffier on this side."

Tilting her head, she does note that the top of the tree seems to be leaning to one side. It's just as well- she hadn't bought a big star to put on the top anyhow. "Don't worry about it, Papa."

_CRACK_ _!_

She gasps, eyes widening in horror as Spirit tosses a broken-off branch to the floor. "I can fix it," he says, reaching for a higher limb to rip off.

"Papa, stop," she urgently warns. She hears the tree creaking with her father's 'fixing'. The man steps on limbs and swats stray twigs out of his way while trying to get a better hold of the branch that's caught his attention. "You're gonna end up killing it or something..."

"C'mere you stupid little-"

It happens too quickly for her to see, but she hears the high-pitched whistling of part of the tree shifting back into place and smacking her father with a loud _whap_ _._ She watches Spirit kneel to the floor, clutching his stomach and wheezing in an effort to find his lungs.

" _Stupid_ _bush_ _..._ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _kill_ _you_ _,"_ he chokes out.

She's beginning to like this tree, a little. It's smacked the two loudest people she knows already.

Eventually, she's forced to usher her father out of the apartment once he regains his breath, for the man tries to tackle the tree with one of her carving knives. Maka firmly slides the door chain into place, assuring him she'll see him again the following weekend.

"And quit shacking up with married women!" she shouts through the door.

"I love you, darling! Merry Christmas!"

She harrumphs, listening through the door to hear him leave the apartment building. Merry Christmas, indeed. Walking to her strand of lights, she lowers herself to the floor to continue unravelling. Blair joins her to bat at the bulbs as they slide along the carpet. It's then she notices that the glittering lights are red.

"What the..." She turns the wires in her hands, speechless. Hadn't they been an assortment of colors a moment ago? Maka blinks and looks again- maybe all the other colors burned out? No, they're _all_ red. She reaches across the floor to pick up the box they had been packed in, but the packaging has a big price tag sticker over the description and photo.

She holds the lights up at arm's length, picturing them on the tree. Perhaps her father being a nuisance in her apartment had distracted her, or something. It's hard to keep track of anything while he's around. Oh well. The color will look nice, at least, with the white garland.


	4. 9 Stations Changing

The lights are just the first in a long list of weird going on in Maka Albarn's life.

" _Oi_ _._ _Oiiii_ _._ _Lady_ _."_

She could blame it on long hours and grueling schedules, but that would mean she's prone to hallucinations. She could blame it on ghosts, but that would also mean she's prone to hallucinations.

" _Couch_ _-_ _lady_ _,_ _hey_ _._ _Ooh_ _,_ _you_ _smell_ _really_ _good_ _."_

If nothing, she's at least consistent. Without fail, after another day of stress at work and promptly falling asleep on her couch, the dreams occur. Dreams aren't so bad, and recurring dreams happen to a lot of people. It could be worse.

" _Woman_ _,_ _wake_ _up_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _thirsty_ _."_

"Mmf. Get yer'own drink."

But now she's talking in her sleep, and that's just not acceptable.

" _But_ _if_ _you_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _do_ _it_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _die_ _,"_ calls a rumbling, teasing voice near her ear.

"Oh you're such a lazy-"

Maka jerks, her own voice waking her. It's dark in the apartment, only vaguely lit up by the glowing red of the Christmas tree. What had she been saying? And to whom? She tiredly rubs her eyes and stretches her stick-like legs. How is she supposed to get any sleep if she keeps waking herself up?

She notices a faint noise- a weird, smacking sound- that reminds her of Blair when she's lapping milk...

"Ah! Blair!" she exclaims, spotting a red and black cat-shaped blob underneath the tree. She gracelessly rolls off the couch to shoo the feline away from the tree's water supply. "Don't drink that, he's gonna dry up-"

Maka stalls in her living room, squinting with confusion. He? Seriously? Maka grunts disapprovingly. She needs to get out more- she's starting to sound like Black Star. She shuffles to the kitchen and retrieves a pitcher full of water. Pouring it into the tree stand's reservoir, her mind worriedly flutters about her mental health. She crawls backwards to get out from under the tree, and wonders if she's been working too much.

She feels fine, but she can't logically explain all the weird things that have been going on. Well, maybe that one time coming home and finding Blair tarred and feathered with sap and pine needles could have been a strange case of feline mischief, but the other things are unclassifiable. ...Unless she must come to terms with being plagued by hallucinations, which she refuses.

But she keeps seeing shadows move in her peripherals! And once, while in the shower, the curtain rod had fallen and she could have sworn she smelled cinnamon though all her soap is unscented. No matter what she tells herself, she can't shake the feeling of being watched.

Maka's fingers hollowly drum on the empty pitcher. Great, maybe she's suffering from paranoia, as well as hallucinations. She needs to get herself together! She still has work to attend, as well as Tsubaki's Christmas party in a few days.

...Maybe she should text Tsubaki and invite her and Black Star over for dinner. Maybe they'll see the weird things going on in her apartment. _Maybe_ _the_ _weird_ _things_ _will_ _stop_ _._

She walks back to the couch and hunts around for her cell phone, finding it wedged between two cushions. Opening it and blinding herself with the bright screen, she realizes dinnertime was five hours ago. Her face contorts into a grimace.

Deciding to heat up a can of soup and go back to sleep, she turns on the lights in her apartment. Maka digs through her pantry for some soup and saltines.

The random popping noises from the heating element on her stove top echo loudly in the silence. Maka catches herself glancing out the corners of her eyes periodically, ever watchful of shifting shadows and any other strange happenings. She pours the can of soup into a saucepan to warm, vegetables plopping noisily.

Something tickles the backs of her calves, and she squeals so loudly her voice cracks. Jumping in fright, she lands, foot on something warm and very not hers. An angry yowl is shot back at her. It's Blair, with tail caught under Maka's right foot. Hastily lifting her leg, she exclaims, "Blair! Sorry, sorry, sorry kitty-" and the, shortly after watching the cat sulk away, follows up with, "Well you shouldn't have scared me!"

Leftover adrenaline still makes her fingers and toes tingle, to her dismay. She's getting worked up over the dumbest things! Uneasy with the silence in her home, she pads back to the living room to turn on the small radio she keeps above the fireplace. Quiet music seems like a good idea for some background noise.

So close to the holiday, she finds all her usual stations are playing Christmas music this late in the evening, which she doesn't care much for. Who wants to hear the same songs covered over and over? With a frown, she picks a station at random and turns the volume low, so she can't hear every little note but still be aware of music playing.

It's a little better, at least. Maka leans on an arm of the couch, crossing her own. Olive eyes slide over to the tree, which glows innocently back, Christmas music tinkling in the air. She can't help but note it looks rather bare, and she almost feels... bad for it, even with the garland and lights. Maybe she should have grabbed some of those glass orb things.

She huffs, irritated. She doesn't know anything about that stuff. As for feeling sorry for a tree, she's going to blame sleep deprivation.

Well, she can't mull over it any further- her soup is starting to smell good and she should stir it. As she walks away from the living room, Maka hears a loud squawking, and she looks around wildly until she eventually recognizes it as the noise of her radio changing stations. At first, she believes she the device merely has bad reception as she walks back to the kitchen, but then the static and electronic crackling grows louder, DJ's voices and tiny, unrecognizable slices of music ringing out at random.

"Great. Now my radio is broken," she mutters, stirring her meal quickly. After turning the stove top's heat off, she sets her spoon down and hurries back to her radio to silence the din. However, the moment her hand touches the power switch, the radio finally lands on a station. She's greeted by a clear female voice, though she thinks the woman may be smacking gum while broadcasting.

" _Everyone_ _here_ _at_ _K_ _-_ _DWMA_ _hopes_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _havin_ _'_ _a_ _pleasant_ _and_ _chill_ _holiday_ _so_ _far_ _._ _We_ _got_ _some_ _classy_ _Crosby_ _and_ _a good_ _one_ _by_ _Buselli_ _-_ _Wallarab_ _you_ _'_ _re_ gonna _like_ _,_ _trust_ _me_ _._ _This_ _is_ _'_ _Lizabeth_ _Thompson_ _'_ _s_ _quality_ _hour_ _."_

Sure enough, Bing Crosby's smooth voice begins to sing, and Maka's outstretched hand slowly falls to her side. She can deal with this style of seasonal music, she supposes. Heck, she might even admit to enjoying it, if not for the whole creepy possessed radio stations thing.

Keeping a wary eye on the device, she eventually settles down on the couch with a warm bowl of soup in one hand and an unfinished novel in the other. She gives the radio one last pointed look before sipping some of her meal. Frank Sinatra casually replies with a sleepy rendition of 'The Christmas Waltz'.

With a defeated sigh, she thumbs open her book, comforted by music, despite her disdain for the weird goings on in her apartment. A few sentences in, and a part of the song jump-starts her memory, bringing old times to the forefront of her mind. Her mother had listened to this kind of music, hadn't she?

" _Hand_ _me_ _another_ _one_ _,_ _sweetie_ _._ _Where_ _should_ _we_ _put_ _it_ _?"  
_ " _Umm_ _,_ _next_ _to_ _this_ _one_ _?_ _What_ _is_ _this_ _place_ _?"  
_ " _That_ _'_ _s_ _Chitchen_ _-_ _Itza_ _,_ _baby_ _._ _It_ _'_ _s_ _in_ _Mexico_ _."  
_ " _Chicken_ _Pizza_ _?"_

Maka abruptly closes her book with a loud snap, eyes growing wide. "Chitchen-Itza," she blurts to no one. She takes a few gulping chugs from her soup and flies out of the couch, bowl and book still in either hand. Trotting to her cozy bedroom, she shoves the book under her armpit and swings open her closet door. Maka stands on tiptoe, blindly searching the top shelf for a shoebox she knows is there. Dust and grit slides under her nails, but she grimaces and deals with it, pulling the box down.

She sits cross-legged on the floor, opening the lid while sipping once more from her soup. Her mother hadn't bought obnoxious ornaments either! That's why she couldn't remember them. She recalls helping her mother decorate the tree when she was younger, before the divorce. Mama had carefully saved numerous postcards and had Maka pick out the ones she liked to put in the tree.

She doesn't have any idea where all those cards have gone since the separation, but she's been saving her own stash for the many years afterward, and it had only recently occurred to her what she can do with them! She digs around for awhile, pulling out a faded postcard her mother had sent the first year she was gone.

On the front is an image of a Mayan pyramid. Maka flips it over to find her mother's familiar handwriting. She smiles, seeing the postcard simply addressed to 'My Lovely Daughter'. _"_ _In Mexico_ _!_ _It_ _'_ _s perfect_ _here_ _._ _Hope_ _to_ _see_ _you_ _for_ _Christmas_ _,_ _babygirl_ _!_ _Love_ _,_ _Mama_ _."_ Smiling, she places the card back in the box and takes the whole thing to the living room.

Mama hadn't come that year, but the picture on the front is nice and somewhat nostalgic, though Maka has never been there. She balances the postcard in the branches of the tree. She ditches her book and now-empty bowl on her coffee table and digs through her shoebox once more.

Switzerland, Singapore, Venice, Egypt... They're all pictures of places she's only heard of. So far away, they sometimes feel like imaginary lands in a fantasy book. The kinds of places her mother stays, now.

Most of the cards say much of the same thing. 'Hope to see you soon', or 'I miss you so much', or 'Can't wait to visit!'

She gingerly places all of these in the tree, though her nostalgic mood has turned mildly numb with the same feeling she's had every Christmas. By the last card, she's stopped reading the messages on the other side. She does end up smiling slightly, however, seeing the picture on the front. A silly looking, great white shark in a Santa hat grins, a banner above it reading, "Merry Christmas From Miami!"

A swinging instrumental starts up on the radio, and Maka places her mother's Christmas card on the tree. The cat finds its way around her ankles again, and Maka can't find it in herself to jump in fright again. Somberly picking up the feline in her arms, she curls up once more on the couch, idly petting Blair. She wonders where Mama is these days; if she still travels, if she remembers her. She wonders, before she lightly dozes off with the cat nestled by her stomach, what it would be like to have someone show up on her doorstep on Christmas morning, like she used to always hope for.

" _Sleeping_ _on_ _the_ _couch_ _again_ _?"_

Warm fingers trace along her forehead. She turns, rolling to her back.

" _You_ _'_ _re_ _gonna_ _catch_ _a_ _cold_ _,_ _you_ _know_ _?"_

She smells cinnamon and hears a gentle sway of jazz and Ella Fitzgerald. For a moment, she's comforted. For a moment, she gets the impression she's sleeping in a warm, full house.

Maka wakes with a start, forgetful of her age and what decade it is. Blair, annoyed with her owner's shifting, yawns and jumps off the couch to walk underneath the coffee table. Maka rouses enough finally to decipher the words coming from her radio.

" _And_ _that_ _was_ _Skafish_ _with_ _'_ _It_ _Came_ _Upon_ _a_ _Midnight_ _Clear_ _',_ _and_ _seeing_ _as_ _it_ _is_ _midnight_ _,_ _that_ _concludes_ _the_ _Quality_ _Hour_ _._ _We_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _back_ _tomorrow_ _,_ _same_ _time_ _,_ _same_ _place_ _._ _I_ _'_ _m_ _out_ _!"_

Rising steam catches her eye. Atop the novel she'd left on the table rests a warm mug of apple cider.


	5. 8 Cats a-Scratching

 

 

She doesn't care it's midnight. She became more frantic first, second, and third times she reached Tsubaki's voicemail, but the woman had finally answered on the fourth attempt. Maka hides in her bathroom, hissing about cider and the other creepy things going on over her mobile phone.

Tsubaki listens patiently to Maka's frenzied spiel. _"_ _Well_ _,"_ comes her friend's breathy voice, as if she had answered the phone after running across the house, _"-_ _when_ _was_ _the_ _last_ _time_ _you_ _got_ _a_ _full_ _-_ _night_ _'_ _s_ _sleep_ _?"_

"I... Uh-"  
" _I_ _'_ _m_ _sure_ _every thing_ _is_ _fine_ _Maka_ _._ _You_ _probably_ _,_ _um_ _,_ _made_ _it_ _and_ _forgot_ _._ _I_ _know_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _stressed_ _-_ _just_ _get_ _some_ _rest_ _and_ _relax_ _."_

Maka's hand tightens painfully around her phone. "How can I relax when my apartment is-"

" _Gimme_ _that_ _,_ _LISTEN_ _._ _HANG_ _UP_ _AND_ _CALL_ _TSUBAKI_ _LATER_ _."  
_ "Black Star? Hey, have you been pranking me? Because it's really not funny!"  
" _ **Twiggy**_ _ **,**_ _ **we**_ _ **'**_ _ **re**_ _ **BUSY**_ _ **.**_ _ **GO**_ _ **-**_ _ **AWAY**_ _ **-**_ _ **BYE**_ _ **."**_

Maka flinches at a loud screeching clatter through the line.

" _Ah_ _,_ _my_ _phone_ _!"  
_ "Black Star? HEY!"

Faintly, she hears, _"_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _get_ _you_ _a_ _new_ _one_ _,"_ and then, _"_ _But_ _-_ _ah_ _..._ _mm_ _,"_ which is then followed by grunty noises. Realization slaps her in the face. With a squeak, she clam-shells her mobile, eager to not hear any more of her best friend's moaning.

Holy crap! She'd just bothered them in the middle of _sex_ _._ She tosses her phone to the bathroom sink like it's a burning hot coal, which, coincidentally, is exactly how her face feels. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," she chants aloud, purposefully leaving all her lights on as she slinks to her bedroom. She changes clothes so fast that she must set a new world record, and hides in her bed.

Maybe she does need a night's sleep. Maybe it is all in her head. Maybe she'd warmed a mug of cider while half-asleep, and doesn't remember it.

Maybe pigs will start flying.

Still, she's pretty mortified. Maka's face burns underneath her quilt. She can't believe she called them while they were doing it! She can't believe Tsubaki had answered. Ah, no! She must have thought it was a real emergency, considering how Maka never calls in the middle of the night unless absolutely necessary. But she had only called over a cup of cider! Maka drags a pillow over her already covered head.

Her lack of significant other has never truly bothered her- she's seen enough relationships go sour, thank you- but every once in awhile, her body forces her to wonder if having someone share her bed for life is actually as legit as everyone makes it out to be. Maka groans, pleading for her mind to shut up! She rolls over in her bed, trying to erase the last half of the entire evening from memory and find sleep. The silence of her home is ear-splitting.

She must find sleep eventually, because the back of her mind speaks in that deep voice again.

" _Are_ _you_ _jealous_ _?"_

Maka hums questioningly, half-rousing and uncomfortably warm.

" _Of_ _your_ _friend_ _getting_ _some_ _. ..._ _Do_ _you_ _ **like**_ _that_ _guy_ _?_ _Please_ _say_ _no_ _."_

An abrupt laugh wakes her up. "No way!" Her voice echoes in her room. Aw crap, she's talking in her sleep again. Irritated, she flops to the side, curling up in a ball underneath her quilt. She wonders where Blair is. The cat usually sleeps on her at night. She guesses all the sleep talking is obnoxious. With a sigh, she snuggles more deeply into her mattress.

" _Good_ _,_ _because_ _I_ _have_ _it_ _from_ _high_ _authority_ _that_ _he_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _like_ _small_ _tits_ _."_

"Whatta jackass," she mumbles, shifting closer to the voice.

" _Right_ _?_ _I_ _do_ _though_ _,_ _you_ _know_ _._ _You_ _should_ _..._ _let_ _me_ _-_ _Ow_ _._ _OW_ _._ _ **OW**_ _ **,**_ _ **WHAT**_ _ **-!"**_

A faint voice exclaiming in pain startles her awake once more, and this time she's in a sweat, her shirt riding up her burning stomach. She hears a loud thud from her living room. "Now what," she murmurs nervously, reaching for her nearest weapon- her laptop- and creeping her way out of her bedroom.

_Rip_ _,_ _rip_ _,_ _riiiip_ _,_ she hears, peeking around the bright corner of her living room. The noise seems to be emanating from the tree, which is tilted back and leaning on the wall, tree stand looking worse for wear. Oh God, what if there really are squirrels in there? Maka swallows, brandishing her laptop with both hands and inching closer to the pine. Slowly, she bends down, peering underneath the numerous boughs at the bottom of the tree.

Maka catches her stupid cat in the act of using the tree's trunk as a scratching post.

"Damn it, Blair!"

The cat ignores her, instead choosing to sniff the tipping water reservoir and taking a drink as she's been in the habit of, lately. "If this is about stepping on your tail," she drawls, "-you're gonna have to get over it _real_ fast, furball." Maka grabs the cat by the scruff and takes her to the bedroom, tossing both the animal and laptop on her bed. She shuts the door and locks the cat in.

Yawning, she tiredly rights the tree, examines the long, diagonal claw marks and cracked stand, and adds as much water as she can without it leaking through the crack on the side. She'll have to get a new stand tomorrow. A lot of her mother's postcards have fallen, but she decides to deal with them after some sleep, yuletide joy be damned. Glancing over her shoulder, Maka finds the now cold mug of cider still on her book at the coffee table. She glowers at it, and feels goosebumps take residence on her arms and legs. She reaches around the tree and unplugs the lights from the wall socket. "Goodnight Mister Tree," she says through another yawn. "Sorry my cat is after you. Keep any burglars, pranksters, ghosts, or hallucinations away for the night for me, please."

She really doesn't want to deal with a haunted apartment right now. She has work in the morning. Exhausted, Maka uses a foot to keep her cat in her bedroom while she enters, shutting the door behind her. She crawls back into her bed and breathes a sigh of relief.

Her alarm goes off.

Maka throws a tantrum in her bed, Blair hissing at the fit.

 


	6. 7 Trees a-Thirsting

She stumbles through the work day riding a roller coaster of caffeine and fear of unemployment, her friend Patti watching her back and correcting her mistakes the whole ride.

"Psst. Wakey wakey."

"Wah!" Maka flings her head up off the table, an arrangement of poinsettias caught in her hair. The younger girl helps untangle the bright red petals. "Thanks again, Patti."

Patricia Thompson is probably too young to be working, but her caretaker is also the owner of 'Balanced Bouquets', so she usually helps out during the busy season. "Sure. Break's almost over. Are you gonna make it to Tsubaki's party on Friday? You don't look so good," the boisterous blond asks, twisting off the cap to a thermos covered in animal stickers.

Maka stretches, feeling numerous joints crack satisfactorily. "Mm. I just need a nap. Black Star told me I was a Grinch and ordered me to go."

Patti laughs. "The Grinch ended up loving Christmas the most, yanno," she states matter-of-factly, taking a swig from her thermos. Maka blinks to herself with this information, bringing her hands up to finish the floral arrangement she had fallen asleep on. "Anyway, take a good nap before then, because I'm gonna bring my sister to the party!"

"I didn't know you had a sister," Maka blurts, slightly jealous. She's never had any siblings!

"Yep! She's really awesome. But she works late so she doesn't get ta see people very much. Her boyfriend's rilly nice too." Patti's elbow gently knocks her in the ribs and Maka finds herself smiling. "So hey, Mister Grinch, whatcha gettin' me for Christmas? Hmm? Hmmm?"

Maka ties a ribbon around the vase of her completed arrangement. "If you keep me awake the rest of my shift, I get you the biggest giraffe I can find." The younger blond beams at her and pumps her arm in victory.

"Yesssss!"

* * *

Her drive home is filled with abrupt pit stops to search through crowded stores for gifts, her tiredness and the ghost of her apartment temporarily forgotten. Sitting at a stoplight in heavy traffic, however, brings back her exhaustion in like a tidal wave. Out of her apartment and in the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world, the idea of a ghost making her cider in the middle of the night sounds more absurd than usual.

She has other things she has to worry about, like keeping her job, and getting sleep, and finding a giant giraffe, among others. Maka wonders, as the light turns green, how to keep Blair from terrorizing the Christmas tree at home.

Once she's off the road and trudging up her stairs with shopping bags of presents hanging from the crook of both elbows, she hesitantly dials Tsubaki's number for advice. She prays she's not having sex this early in the afternoon.

" _What_ _'_ _s_ _wrong_ _,_ _Maka_ _?"_ her friend chirps.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman knocks on Maka's front door, letting herself in. She carries a large, folded piece of fabric.

"I found it, finally," she says, shutting the door behind her.

Maka puts a 'To' and 'From' sticker on Tsubaki's present, glad that it's already wrapped. Looking up at the cloth in Tsubaki's arms, confusion crosses her face. "Thanks. Um. Found what?"

"I brought you a tree skirt."

"A what-what?"

The taller woman unfolds the 'skirt' and holds it out for display. It looks knit, dyed bright red with a dark argyle pattern, making Maka dizzy. "A skirt! To go around the tree, you know."

"O-oh. Um. Thank you. It's very..." Maka spins her hands around, searching for an acceptable word, "-sweatery."

Tsubaki snorts. "I know it's hideous, you don't have to hide it."

"Oh thank God."

"But it'll help keep Blair from getting into the water, so..."

Maka's eyes widen, puzzle pieces fitting together in her head suddenly. "Oh! It goes down there! _Ohhh_ _._ That makes more sense," she says, standing up and taking the heavy fabric into her own hands.

"Where did you think it went?" Tsubaki asks quizzically.

She stutters. "I-I don't know! You're the Christmassy one. I thought it was like, um," Maka holds it out confusedly towards the pine tree. "Like... a cape? Shut up," she grumbles at her friend's giggles.

After helping attach the skirt to the base of the tree, Tsubaki comments, "At least it matches? Sort of."

"It's surprisingly not too golfer's socks-ish," Maka deadpans, crawling out from the tree on her knees.

"So what's all the postcards about?" Tsubaki gestures towards the postcard-pocalypse all over the floor.

"Eh. Blair knocked them off last night." Maka points at the Christmas shark still clinging to the tree's branches. "That's the only one that seems to want to stay on. I haven't gotten around to fixing the others, yet."

Tsubaki wears a contemplative face. "You sure it's the cat?"

Maka glances at her friend in wary curiosity. "...Why, what else would it be?" She gets an innocent look threatening to break into a smirk in reply. The blond frowns. "You're teasing me again."

"I'm not teasing you!"

Disgruntled, Maka stalks off to the kitchen to fill up a glass with water. The tree had looked low, again. "Look, I apologize for calling about hallucinations while you guys were doing it, alright? Tell Horn Star I'm sorry."

Tsubaki flushes scarlet and stutters something about not worrying about anything. Eager to change the subject, she peers at the coffee table. "Oh! Is this the cider in question?"

"Who wants to know?" Maka replies, taking a sip from the water glass.

"You didn't drink it?"  
"No! Why would I? It could be from a- a- a malicious ghost! Or something. _Stop_ _touching_ _it_ _!"_

"Oh, please." The brunette scoffs, but obliges by leaving the mug alone. "What ghost would try to make you enjoy the holiday?"

Maka pointedly goes the long way around her coffee table to stay as far away from the cold cider as possible. She crawls back under the tree with the water and opens the skirt enough to pour it in the tree stand. "Ask Scrooge?"

"Have you at least slept since then?" Tsubaki's voice reaches underneath the tree.

"...Not really," Maka mutters.

Her friend opens the front door, chiding her. "Go to bed! I assure you, the boogeyman isn't going to come out and make you watch The Nutcracker against your will."

Maka's sweater gets caught in the limbs, and she growls with frustration. "Those won't be the only nuts cracked..." Finally free, she lands on her butt with a huff, glancing over to the doorway. "Thanks Tsubaki."

"Do you like the tree?"

With a thoughtful frown, she gazes at the tree in front of her. It doesn't seem so out of place, anymore. She's grown used to it's evergreen presence. "It might be growing on me," she admits. "Thanks again," she says sincerely.

Tsubaki dazzles the entire apartment with a smile. "Hey, are you going to bring anyone to the party?" she asks suddenly, hand still on the doorknob.

"W-what? Like _who_ _?"_ Maka questions, somewhat aghast at the very thought.

Her friend avoids eye contact, instead innocently watching the tree. "I don't know, a date?"

Disbelieving scowl in place, Maka replies in monotone. "Maybe you're the one hallucinating."

"I just want a headcount, that's all," Tsubaki defends with a sheepish smile. "Get some sleep," she advises before shutting the door on her way out.

Sleep. Right. Maka sighs, surveying all the the postcards, gift bags, and wrapping paper surrounding her. She rolls up her sweater's sleeves with determination. She has a few more things to do before she rewards herself with that good nap Patti talked about. Preferably eight hours long. Though that much sleep in one go may be considered a Christmas miracle by this point, she has a better shot at that than bringing a _date_ to Tsubaki's party.

Even thinking about being accosted by a stranger under misletoe (because it would have to be a stranger for her date, as all the other guys she knows are _taken_ ) makes her crinkle her nose. Who needs dates?! She has a cat and a tree to look after, after all. Big responsibilities! Sort of. Close enough.

Maka sticks out her tongue in disgust, yanking a strip of clear tape free from its roll. "Stink, stank, _stunk_ _,"_ she recites, though she doesn't know if she's talking about Christmas, her mental health, or her social life.

* * *

The next day, she comes home from work toting a new tree stand, which is just as well, because the tree is knocked completely over again, original stand broken into several pieces. Water soaks one side of the surrounding carpet, though luckily none of the wrapped presents were drenched or squashed in the process.

Maka glares at Blair, who nests like a bird atop the fallen tree. "Cat," she growls, "I'm gonna feed you to a dog for Christmas."

Locking the feline in her bedroom once more, she finds with chagrin that the tree will no longer stand upright, the broken stand completely useless. She struggles with the weight of the pine, stumbling and crashing into the wall with it. Well, at least the wall will hold it in place, but she doubts she'll be able to lift the tree high enough to put it in the new stand, no matter how much of a quiet night's rest she got last night.

"Uhg, now what. Papa did this last time..." She supposes she could call him, but she's not mentally prepared to have her father enter her apartment so early in the week. Her only other strong-bodied option is Black Star, but she had run into both him and Tsubaki at the department store, shopping for the party. She's already interrupted enough of their _outings_ _._

The Christmas tree slides down the wall a few inches, lights loudly scraping the plaster. Maka grimaces. "Okay, okay!" she gripes, digging for her mobile phone in her coat pocket. She pulls out old receipts, used Kleenex and other various bits she's accumulated over time. In the process she does manage to find her phone in the mess, only to have it fumble out of her hands to the floor with a thud. Maka groans, bending over.

Something that she wants to call a 'chill'- though it doesn't feel cold at all- traces down her spine. Straightening with a squeak and clutching her phone in a fist ready to punch, she whirls around. No one is there- only the tree, which looks rather pathetic with its fluffy, lopsided branches splayed disjointedly across the wall it leans on.

Goosebumps attack her calves and upper arms. Maka scratches her lower back through her coat. Well, whatever. Just her imagination, or maybe a piece of lint or ...something.

She finally opens her phone and dials her father. The line doesn't even ring once completely before Spirit Albarn picks up the phone. _"_ _Baby_ _?_ _What_ _'_ _s_ _the_ _matter_ _?_ _What_ _'_ _s_ _wrong_ _?_ _Who_ _do_ _I_ _have_ _to_ _kill_ _?!"_

A small fog of guilt moves in over her. Seems she only calls _anyone_ when she needs something, and everyone answers accustomed to thinking it's an emergency. "N-nobody, Papa. I was just wondering if you could stop by really quick-"

" _Of_ _course_ _I_ _can_ _!_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _right_ _over_ _-"_

The line dies with a click. "-if you're not. Busy." Maka frowns, shutting her phone. What is she getting into because of this tree?


	7. 6 Mugs a-Steaming

She's surprised to see him dressed in his work uniform. "P-Papa? Were you at work? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"I was on my way to work, but I'm early. I have time!" Spirit assures her, stepping through her front door, looking giddy to be let in twice in one week. "So what did you need my help... with? Oh." He comes to stand next to the fallen tree, which still leans against a wall. Spirit rests his hands in his pockets. He looks somewhat pleased. "What happened here?" he asks, a smile in his voice.

Maka frowns. Well, she's used to her father being strange. "He-" No! Not 'he'! " **It** got knocked over and the stand..." She trails off, using her hands to make a small explosion, her fingers spreading outward like the plastic stand shrapnel. "Well, I got a new one, but I can't lift the tree, so I called you."

Spirit grins, more pleased than before. "Alright!" he says, grasping the trunk through the tree's branches. "Up, we, go!"

Settling everything with the newer stand, Maka fetches more water while her father says, "It's still crooked."

"I know, Papa. It's fine."  
"I'm just saying! You might be better off putting it out of its misery."  
"You're not allowed to stab my tree, Dad."  
"Alright, alright. Do you want me to...?"

"No, I got it. Thanks," she says as she crawls under the tree with a full pitcher. "I've had lots of practice," she adds sourly.

There's a small silence punctuated by pouring liquid and what she assumes is her father messing with the garland on the tree. Spirit then says, with surprise, "O-oh. Is this from your mother?"

Oh. The Santa shark postcard. Her arm is frozen with the pitcher in mid-pour. She has to think to move again. "Ah, yeah." Her voice is higher pitched, as if she's talking to a stranger over the phone and is unsure how to act. Spirit hardly ever brings Mama into the conversation. She's become somewhat of an unspoken taboo between them.

"How is she, erm, doing?"

Maka is unsure how to answer this, crawling backwards and sitting up once she's free of needled branches. She sits on her heels, watching red glowing lights. "I haven't heard from her in a... awhile." More like 'a few years'.

He seems to catch the worried inflection in her voice that she'd tried to hide. "Ah," he says. She looks up at him and he gives her a closed-lip smile. "She's probably just busy," he gently encourages, though the words somehow make her stomach twist harder than before.

"Y-yeah. Probably." What is this uneasy atmosphere? Stupid Santa shark!

Blair mews pitifully from across the apartment. Maka's eyes widen, surprised and grateful at the same time. "Oh! Kitty, I'm sorry!" she calls, jumping to her feet and jogging to her bedroom to let the cat out.

"You locked her up?" Spirit calls after her.

Maka opens the door and gently picks up the purring feline. She walks back to the living room. "She keeps terrorizing the tree!"

Her father gives a sidelong glance to the Christmas tree next to him. "I don't see how that's a problem."

"Papa!" she jokingly scolds, "Why do you hate my tree so much?"

"It's crooked! It's the laziest tree I've ever seen!"

Blair jumps out of Maka's arms and trots to Spirit. "It's a tree. It stands all day. What else is it supposed to do?" She watches her cat rub on her father's shiny shoes.

He frowns. "It doesn't even do that right- it slouches. I expect better things for my daughter, including trees!" The last of this sentence he says pointedly to the tree in question, as if it can hear Spirit's criticism.

"I was thinking Black Star was crazy, but now I think everyone's mad."

Spirit gives her a look, shaking a finger at her. "That kid is a punk-ass too! You shouldn't-"

"'-hang around punks', yes, I know." Not that it's going to stop her, but saying the phrase placates her father well enough. She's then witness to the man openly speaking cutesy baby talk to her cat. And then an idea lights up her brain.

"Are yu a gud keety? Yus yu are! Such a preety keety and not like doze punk-ass little sons of-"  
"Hey, Papa... Do you think you can watch Blair for awhile?"

Spirit picks up the cat, ignoring the fur she leaves on his uniform. "What, at the house?"

"Yeah."

"Sure I can. Though I can't take her til after work, but yu heer dat? Preety keety is gonna come home wif us!" And then, to Maka with a straight face, "Are you sure you don't want me to... fix your tree?"

Maka's face pinches with exasperation. "There's nothing wrong with it! So you're fine with the cat? Just while I have the tree here."

Spirit answers the cat instead, to her disgust. "Yus! Yus we will. Keety-keety will keep us company, won't she? Do you still have a key to the house?"

It takes her a moment to realize she's being spoken to. "A-ah, yeah. I do."

"You can drop off her things, if you want. I won't be off til morning. Then wittle Blair can go for a wide! Yus she can!"  
"Dad, you're freakin' me out a little."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Alright, I need to get going," he says reluctantly, placing Blair on the floor at his feet. "Anything else you need before I go?"

"I'm good. Go to work! Don't be late because of me."

"It's fine, I'm not late. I just need to head out. And I wouldn't care about being late if my daughter asks me for help." He had somehow sneaked closer to her without her awareness. Maka is abruptly caught in a crushing hug, his jacket smelling faintly of peppermint that warms her with nostalgia.

"Th-thanks. Okay, get going already."

Spirit lets her go, giving one last back-scrub to the cat before he opens the front door. On his way out, he stops. "Oh hey, what are you doing Christmas day? I was, erm, thinking about maybe cooking a small chicken or… but if you're busy don't worry about it-"

Her arms cross themselves, fingers clenching. He asks this every year. "At the house?" Spirit gives her a hesitant smile. Maka balks at the idea of spending Christmas with her father- especially in the house she grew up in with both of her parents so happily. She hasn't been there since Mama moved away. "I... don't know, Papa."

Used to this answer, he nods agreeably, moving the door halfway closed behind him. "It's no pressure! Just, you know, think about it, sweetheart. If you don't have other plans."

She swallows a scratchy dryness in her throat. "Mm. Bye Dad."

"Bye darling. Love you!" And the door shuts after her father, who doesn't expect any reply from her in return. Her apartment suddenly feels cold- her sense of self brittle and unsteady.

Blair mews, waiting for dinner. Maka looks down at the feline, numb. "Guess I ought to see the place sooner or later, huh?" she tells her cat.

* * *

'Wittle Blair' doesn't like car rides, or maybe she catches on to her owner's current emotions. The cat is very vocal and nervous in her kennel, and Maka is glad the trip takes less than ten minutes. "We're almost there, kitty," she tries to soothe, pulling into a driveway that seems a lot smaller than she recalls.

An empty bird feeder faintly twists in the cold air, hanging from a tree still clinging on to its browned leaves. Maka's heart thumps, though she doesn't know why. Taking the kennel first, she hurries to the front door, not wanting to expose the cat to the winter temperatures.

She tries not to think about anything as she unlocks the door to the house. She turns the key, then the knob, swings the door open, and hurries inside. Ignoring her surroundings, she places the kennel on the floor and walks back out the door for the rest of her pet's things.

That hadn't been so bad. It's just a house. There's nothing special to it. She's a grown woman, and she already deals with ghosts at home so what's so scary about an empty house? Nothing! With this mental pep-talk, she takes in Blair's litter pan, bag of food, and little felt mice, bravely entering the house once more and closing the door.

The cat still meows, but now out of more curiosity than stress. Maka finds a suitable corner of the house for the litter pan and then sets the cat loose. While Blair sniffs out her new stomping grounds, Maka finally takes a breath and observes her surroundings.

She doesn't know what she'd expected. She'd known her mother had taken everything with her, but seeing the house still so visibly empty is somewhat surprising. Maybe Maka had believed there to be an accumulation of other things over time- things left by all her father's multiple girlfriends like incriminating evidence to prove Maka's reasons to never return. Hell, at least some dirty clothes on the floor or any kind of appearance that anyone lives here at all would have made her feel better.

It's clean. There's a couch that looks more or less pristine, and a recliner that is worn and well-used. In the kitchen, there's a coffee mug in the sink, spoon resting inside. His work schedule is pinned by a magnet on the refrigerator. Inside is customary fare: a half-gallon of orange juice, coffee creamer, and takeout containers.

The bathroom smells of peppermint.

Her old bedroom is a little musty. A bed frame is disassembled and leaning on the wall, along with a mattress and box spring. Two bookshelves crammed to over-capacity still hold the multitude of children's books she'd read countless times. The curtains she helped her mother pick out- big, bright sunflowers painted on an expanse of blue- still hang on the window.

Blair mews at her. Maka remembers she hasn't fed the cat, yet. She digs through the bag she'd brought in and sets her food dishes in the kitchen, pouring fresh water and tiny kibble.

As the lifeless dull of her old home bores into her with pestering, persistent observations (her father seems to be an endless font of energy when around her, but his house reflects none of this), she notes that there is no sign of even the tiniest Christmas tree anywhere. No tinsel, no stupid elf slippers, no Santa hats.

(Hadn't he been the one wrapping presents long into the night?)

(Hadn't he been the one to share a candy cane with her whenever he came home from work?)

Maka still firmly believes she had never gone out of her way to ruin a person's Christmas, but upon realizing she'd never tried to make someone's either, she wonders if that is just as Grinch-like.

* * *

It's late by the time she gets home. She huddles in her bed, lonely without her cat curled on her stomach.

She feels pretty shitty, all around. She falls asleep, sick with panic, guilt, and the self-loathing that comes with lack-luster epiphanies about oneself.

" _I_ _thought_ _you_ _'_ _d_ _never_ _come_ _home_ _."_

Shadows dance behind her closed eyelids, moving and hovering and inspecting her.

" _Thanks_ _for_ _,_ _you_ _know_ _,_ _saving_ _me_ _._ _From_ _the_ _floor_ _._ _And_ _your_ _stupid_ _cat_ _."_

For whatever reason, red and black argyle sweaters and great white sharks flit through her mind, and she's annoyed, because she's busy hating herself for not getting her father a Christmas present. Even if the searing warmth caressing up her thigh and hip feels soothing and sensual, she's determined to pout.

"Go'way," Maka mumbles, turning on her side and curling around with a pillow clutched to her chest.

She sees something in her dream resembling an indignant pout. _"_ _Cruel_ _._ _Why_ _'_ _re_ _you_ _so_ _mopey_ _,_ _bookworm_ _?"_

Because she's a failure. A big, green, fuzzy Grinch-failure, who wastes years waiting for Mama to show up while Papa had done the same for his daughter who lives seven and a half blocks away.

" _Well_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _grant_ _he_ _'_ _s_ _an_ _obnoxious_ _ **old**_ _ **log**_ _,_ _and_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _pretty_ _sure_ _he_ _'_ _s_ _out_ _to_ _trim_ _my_ _good_ _branch_ _,_ _if_ _you_ _get_ _what_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _sayin_ _',"_ a voice sighs into the back of her neck. A strong arm wraps around her stomach and holds her close.

Still. She's a terrible daughter, and friend to boot! The people who care about her always answer the phone wondering what's wrong. She's a killjoy, a Scrooge, a Grinch-

" _No_ _,_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _just_ _kinda_ _weird_ _."_ His deep timbre seeps into her bones like a balm. _"_ _Quit_ _making_ _stuff_ _harder_ _than_ _it_ _really_ _is_ _._ _You_ _already_ _know_ _what_ _you_ _hafta_ _do_ _."_

"But I didn't find a giraffe..," she murmurs aloud.

" _Pff_ _-"_

She frowns, getting the distinct feeling she's being laughed at.

" _Don_ _'_ _t_ _even_ _worry_ _about_ _it_ _,"_ the voice murmurs into the back of her neck. _"_ _Nerd_ _."_

Maka doesn't want to wake up. She refuses to apply logic to this dream, and doesn't reply, even if she wants to argue that she's not a 'nerd'. Pressing against her back is a comforting warmth that soothes her troubles, and she wills herself to relax into a deep sleep.

Hours later, voices do eventually rouse her. Admittedly they're at least different than the kind that have been waking her up the past few nights, but she's still grumpy and disoriented, not wanting to leave her warm spot on the bed.

She's lured out of it by a teasing hint of cinnamon and cloves that she's too curious to not follow.

The tree shines in the dark, along with the back-light of the radio on the fireplace. A station is playing music, turned on during the night of its own volition. 'Christmas Time is Here' is on, children's voices quietly singing slightly out of tune in that endearing, innocent way. Maka's heart pounds enough to make any little drummer boys feel inadequate.

Fighting the urge to turn and hide in the bathroom and risk calling Tsubaki (in the middle of intercourse) for help, Maka shakily sits down on her couch, where the scent of spice is strongest. She takes a deep breath.

If she's going crazy, she may as well confront it head on. Mama always said courage is a redeeming quality- maybe it will be enough of one to keep her out of the loony bin. "O-okay, Mister Cider Ghost-thing," she nearly hisses. "Now what?" Though even as she asks, so has a feeling she knows the answer. Her eyes dart to the mug still on her coffee table, silhouetted by crimson lights.

Unsure if she wants to be right, she slowly reaches a finger to the cup, swallowing hard as a fingertip touches the outside.

It's warm. Maka flies away from it, crushing herself into the couch and lifting her feet off the floor to the cushions. Courage is for sane people!

" _You_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _drink_ _it_ _?"  
_ " _No_ _!_ _Why_ _would_ _I_ _?"_

Her heart has never beat so quickly without the aid of a roller coaster, haunted house, or Black Star in a rabid squirrel mask. Already, she is trying to apply any sort of rational explanation to the situation. Maybe she sleepwalks? Maybe elves are hiding in her pantry. Maybe Santa is pranking her.

If she's this far gone, maybe she should just freakin' drink it. Maybe, ala Wonderland, the cider will shrink her so small she'll disappear out of this festive insanity altogether.

With a curse hissing between her teeth, Maka wraps her palms around the steaming mug. Her arms quiver with nervousness, but she manages to not spill the cup's contents everywhere. She's not thirsty by any means, even if her mouth is terribly dry.

If this poisons her, she's going to haunt Tsubaki forever. See how she likes her shower curtains pulled down! Maka scrunches her eyes shut and brings the mug to her lips. Warm cider spills across her tongue and eases down her throat.

It tastes like... she can't decide, though her shoulders relax. It's not like her mother's cider. It's not like her own, either. Maka opens her eyes. She seems to not only be not poisoned, but also the correct size, so the Wonderland theory is out. Just as she admits to herself that she actually likes the flavor, she's blinded by an intense light from her coffee table.

Startled and sloshing cider all over her pajama pants, her pupils finally contract enough to be able to see- what is that, a rectangle? No, a screen! Her laptop screen has just turned on, open and facing her. She'd be relieved to see something that truly belongs to her if only she didn't know that she hadn't left it here on the table the last time she used it. But it's still present, and open to a web page she's never seen, which predominately displays last-minute holiday shipping options for whatever is in the e-shopping cart.

Studying the small thumbnail of the item ordered while fighting off the intense need to hyperventilate, she spies a giant stuffed giraffe.

" _Oh_ _that_ _we_ _could_ _always_ _see_ _such_ _spirit_ _through_ _the_ _year_ _~"_ the radio sings merrily into the darkness.


	8. 5 New Door Keys

"I think," she explains to her godfather, "-that someone has been breaking into my apartment." Or rather, she _hopes_ someone is breaking in to her apartment.

"Oh?" Stein says, idly flipping through the hardware store's catalogue for a part number. "They steal anything?"

Not expecting a complete lack of surprise, Maka blinks. "I, uh. I'm not sure." Unless the memories of preparing cider and e-shopping being stolen counts.

Stein, a middle-aged man who is technically younger than her father but looks older from various scars and graying hair, peers dully over his circular spectacles into her face. "Then how do you know anyone's broken in?"

Maka opens her mouth, but shuts it because she has nothing to say and she's just breathed in an overwhelming smell of sawdust and paint. She coughs. "Some of my stuff's been moved around," she eventually supplies from behind her hand.

"Mm-hmm," the man acknowledges her complaint with the barest minimum amount of politeness possible. "Sounds like you're haunted."

Sweat breaks out on her brow. Maka laughs nervously. "H-haunted? Haha! Don't be absurd."

He grunts. "It's happened to me before," Stein says, as if trying to comfort her with his supposed anecdote. "Turns out it was just a spirit. He made everything smell like... gum? Mint gum, perhaps."

Maka tries her best to not look like she's worried for her godfather's sanity. He doesn't seem to notice. His finger runs down a page of part numbers and glossy pictures, halting near the end of the list. His other hand picks up a phone and presses a button he must know well, because he doesn't need to look to see which one is necessary. He gives Maka a look she can't read and holds the receiver to his face.

Throughout the hardware store, Stein's monotonous voice echoes. _"_ _Maddy_ _,_ _come_ _to_ _the_ _customer_ _service_ _desk_ _."_

Somewhere behind aisles of chainsaws, shovels, and PVC pipe elbows, Maka hears a high pitched roar of frustration. Unfazed, the man hangs up the headset, which clatters loudly over the PA system. "You know, apartment maintenance would probably do this for you for free, if you asked."

This had not occurred to her. "Oh. Well... I like doing things myself."

Stein almost smiles. "Yes. It's good to remove any extraneous variables," he agrees, though the way he says 'variables' makes Maka lean uncomfortably away from the counter. Then she watches him turn his head to the side slightly and say, "Oh, you're here. Excellent."

Which is all well and good, except Maka sees no one at all. This is not good news. Either Stein talks to imaginary people, or Maka's mental problems have followed her out of the house and into public. If the latter's the case, there's no point in trying to pretend she has burglars messing around with her.

"What do you want _now_ _,"_ comes a spiteful voice, almost child-like but with the venom of a very displeased maturity. Maka starts, not expecting a third voice as she hasn't seen anyone show up. Maka curiously rocks forward on her toes, peering over the counter Stein attends. She spies a small head of blond hair just barely in view. She almost wants to cry out in relief that she (or Stein, for that matter) is not imagining things.

Stein has a hint of amusement in his eyes, though most of it hides behind his glasses. He points at a picture in the catalogue. "I need you to go in the stock room and find me one of these."

A high-pitched sigh floats to Maka's ears. "What is it," the person asks flatly, as if used to this routine.

"I am indicating it clearly, I thought."  
"I can't see it, you incorrigible sack of-"  
"Oh, in that case-"  
"No! No don't even, PUT ME DOWN!"

Stein deposits a very small girl on the counter, complete with tiny apron with the name "Medusa" written at the top in permanent marker. She's almost cute, if Maka can ignore the acid shooting out of her eyes first at Stein and then herself, for getting the tiny woman in to this mess.

Maka slaps a hand over her mouth before she can blurt out the painfully obvious 'you're very short'. Stein seems to relish his co-worker's hatred. He makes minute motions with his hand. "Maka, this is Maddy. Maddy, Maka."

The very embodiment of disdain regards her with a scowl thrown over a miniature shoulder. "It's _Medusa_ _._ A pleasure."

"Maddy, sarcasm is not considered a part of customer service."  
"Just tell me what the hell you want, nutjob."

After a sigh when her boss points out the doorknob and lock set in question, Medusa slides off the counter and disappears. Child-like footsteps stomp away, unseen.

Maka raises her eyebrow at Stein. "And you wonder why you have to keep hiring new people."

The man takes off his glasses and wipes them with the corner of his own apron. "She won't leave. No one believes how old she is and won't hire her."

"How old is she?"  
"We went to school together."

Maka stares disbelievingly at Stein while he returns his lenses to his face and picks up the phone behind him once more. _"_ _Oh_ _and_ _Maddy_ _,_ _get_ _the_ _one_ _off_ _the_ _top_ _shelf_ _,_ _would_ _you_ _?"_

Curses echo to the front of the store while Stein allows himself one small hum of amusement, hanging up the phone. "It's the little things in life." He takes a cordless bar code scanner and it beeps as he scans one printed in the catalogue. "Make sure you give a copy of the new key to the complex office. In case you get locked out."

"Uh huh..," Maka distractedly replies, watching the miniature woman struggling with a step ladder passing an aisle. "Should you help her?"

Stein punches a few buttons on the touch screen of the cash register. "She likes to do things herself, too. You need anything else?"

"Ah, no," she answers, pulling her wallet out of her coat pocket. "How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing. Pretend it's an early gift," Stein answers dully.

She looks up from her wallet in surprise, not expecting this sudden, though unenthusiastic, act of holiday cheer. "What? I. Um. Thank you, Stein. ...I didn't get-"

"It's alright," he cuts her off, pulling out his own worn, patchwork wallet and swiping his credit card at the register. "Merry Christmas, Maka."

And her streak of saying the phrase without any sort of sarcasm or irony is broken after several years, sincerity feeling alien but not unwelcome in her mouth. "M-Merry Christmas."

"Say 'hello' to your father for me," he says, and in the distance she hears Medusa howling how she can't reach any stupid doorknobs.

* * *

Coming home from the hardware store, she waits in her doorway for any sign of things being amiss. The living room smells like cider, but in a lingering, she-spilled-it-all-over-the-carpet-last-night way, rather than the creepy something's-haunting-her-kitchen-as-she-eats-breakfast way. The laptop is still on her coffee table, open and facing the couch. It's no longer on, the battery run dry, but she knows what screen it would still display- an e-receipt for a stuffed giraffe, because she's not one to pass up an opportunity even if it scares the daylights out of her.

She half-expects Blair to greet her, before she remembers the cat is presently staying with her father. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary (or nothing new out of the ordinary, at the very least), Maka cautiously toes off her work shoes, shuts the door behind her, and inches into her apartment.

Eventually, after a full inspection of the premises, she does let her guard down, determined to rule out any 'extraneous variables' by installing the new lock and hopefully have it become the solution to the weird things going on in her home. This distraction lasts for some time, between trying to open the stupid plastic packaging around the new doorknob set, trying to disassemble her old knob, and attempting to replace it.

It isn't until much later, when she has a leg propped against a wall and the other sprawled in the apartment complex hallway as she tries to assemble the damned thing with the half-open door between her legs, that she realizes what the date and time is. Black Star helps her, by thundering up the stairs wearing jingle bell socks and reindeer antlers. He stands next to her foot, pointedly scowling. Tsubaki must have been baking all day for the party, because her boyfriend smells strongly of gingerbread cookies.

"Oh no, Black Star, I didn't mean-"  
"You're late, Grinch."

Maka attempts to placate the man with gentle hand gestures, but when she takes her fingers away from the new doorknob, it falls apart and lands on the floor. She groans, thunking her head on the wall behind her. "I didn't realize it was Friday already, I'm sorry. I'll get ready, I promise! ...Whenever I finish this stupid thing," she points at the hole in her door where a knob should be with the end of a screwdriver.

When he snorts, the antlers flap a little. He looks around the half-open door, glancing into the apartment. "I see your tree is still hanging around."

She sighs, trying to balance opposite ends of a doorknob and placing them back together on her door. "Amazingly enough," she mutters. "It's been an adventure."

Black Star crouches, socks jingling, and he holds one end of the doorknob while she attaches screws through the other side. "And how'd that go?"

"Long story short, the cat is staying with my dad for the time being."

He cackles. "Nice skirt you put on him, there."

Maka suppresses a snort of her own. "Don't laugh too hard, it belongs to your girlfriend."

Her words seem to make him laugh harder. "I know, that's why it's great. Here gimme that."

"No! I can do it."  
"I'm the god here, give me the damn screwdriver."  
"Don't order me around when your wearing those clown socks!"  
"They're ELF socks, thank you. Go get ready so I don't come back to the party empty handed!"

Oh. She has no retort for this, so she grudgingly pouts and pushes the screwdriver in his hands forcefully enough to knock him backwards.

"What the hell!" Black Star calls after her, bells continuing to jingle as she trots away to change into something more festive.

She laughs. "That's what you get for making fun of my tree!"

* * *

Tsubaki's party is a big hit. Her food is nothing short of delicious, and everyone's spirits soar high with the festivities and copious amounts of eggnog. Maka meets many new faces, including both Patricia Thompson's guardian, whose name she only catches as 'Kid' and who'd seemed very preoccupied with sorting refrigerator magnets at the time, and her older sister, Elizabeth Thompson, who surprises her as soon as she speaks.

"'Lizabeth. Nice meeting ya," the taller sister says in greeting, holding up what looks to be hot chocolate in salutation.

Maka's eyes widen. "Oh! Aren't you on the radio in the evenings?"

Elizabeth nudges her elbow into her younger sister's arm, not unlike how Patti has done to Maka on occasion. "You see that, Pat? I'm gonna be famous." The sisters laugh. And then, to Maka, she says, "Yeah, I am. Have you listened to the show? How ya like it?"

Well, if she skips around the fact that it's always on though she never touches the radio, she can admit over the noise of the party, "I-I really love it, actually! You play the only holiday music I can enjoy."

"Yeah? Wish I could take all the credit, but my boyfriend helps me pick out a lotta tunes." She takes a moment to sip at her chocolate, looking pleased. "I'm hoping ratings'll be high enough we can get somethin' bettah than just a seasonal show."

"Patti was saying he was really nice, did he come with you?"  
"Naw, he's at the station covering for me so I could come hang here. I'll have to bring him around sometime."

"Oh," Maka replies, apologetic. "Sorry he couldn't make it!"

Elizabeth shakes her head. "Don't worry 'bout it! He'll be happy to hear we have a fan." The woman smiles to herself, holding the steaming mug of chocolate between her palms.

Before the night's over, Maka's presents are distributed (two tickets to the latest show at the planetarium for Tsubaki, a tee shirt which simply reads 'The Mightier' across the chest for Black Star, and a promise to Patti that a long-necked friend should be arriving in the mail soon), a lot of karaoke songs are poorly sung, and so much champagne and eggnog are consumed that even Maka feels a little tipsy saying goodnight to friends and new acquaintances. It's not even midnight, but to say she suffers a mild case of sleep deprivation would be sugarcoating things.

She's tired, but quite happy that she'd been talked into attending, even if she hadn't brought a date with her. Sure, seeing several couples kissing and cuddling had made her feel a little awkward (okay, maybe a little envious as well), but she got a quick peck on the lips under some mistletoe, herself, so she can't complain.

Maybe this Christmas stuff isn't as bad as she's been convincing herself. She shuts her friends' apartment the door behind her, muffling the lingering noise of the party. She hugs a book to her chest, which had been a surprisingly thoughtful present from Black Star, and tightens her grip on a gift bag filled to the brim with new cooking utensils, recipe books, and even a new toy for Blair from Tsubaki.

Maka takes a deep breath, trying to straighten the slight tilting the hallways appear to be doing in her vision. She knows she had told Tsubaki that Christmas parties were places that people went to just to get wasted off eggnog, and now she feels a bit shamed for having said it, now that she's met some pretty cool people at said party and she's not exactly sober herself.

The Friday before Christmas seems to be a popular night for parties- several other get-togethers have overflowed out of their respective apartments and into the hallways of the building. The whole complex seems to be celebrating. A resident must have taken the liberty of liberally attaching mistletoe to every available surface in the lobby and hallways. Maka is forced to politely cough her way through snogging couples and what might have been borderline dry-humping in the stairwell. She's sure the custom requires only a kiss, but it's late, and oh gosh, she's staring. Maka struggles to look away, especially after she hears a zipper go down, but she manages up the stairs, face like a beet.

At least they're, um, in the spirit? Though every lip-smacking noise she hears seems to rub the fact that she's very single in her face. Well, who likes making out anyway? She switches her book into the hand holding the gift bag and digs into her back pocket for her keys, inserting one into her door. Making out is just a bunch of slobber and over-hyped tongues and bad breath and really, the aftertaste of eggnog is not the best thing to be swapping with people, and … why is her key not working?

Maka jiggles the small piece of metal in the doorknob. It won't turn. This is her apartment, right? She peers at the bronze numbers on her door. Forty-two? Yes, it's the right place. Is this the right key? Yes, because she only has three, and the other two are for her mailbox downstairs and her car.

She hisses something very unbecoming at her locked door. The new key! She hadn't put it on her key ring! In fact, it's probably still sitting on the kitchen counter, where she'd left it when she had opened the packaging for the new doorknob. "Ah, you idiot!" Maka exclaims aloud. She'd been in such a rush to get ready for Tsubaki's party that she left it there while Black Star had finished installing the lock on her door.

Maka utters a few more choice curses. Stein had even told her to give a spare key to the front desk, just in case this kind of stupidity happened! Crap. Maybe she can break in with that credit card trick? She has no idea how that works, though. And the only cards she has are her driver's license and debit card, and if either of those break she'll be very, very distraught.

Using her forehead to knock repeatedly on the wood and hopefully relieve some of her frustrations, she reaches in her other pocket for her phone. Black Star can break down anything. How much does a replacement door cost? She sighs. There's no way she's getting the security deposit back after this.

She holds the ringing phone between her cheek and shoulder as she desperately tries her key again, though she's certain it will not work. The line rings endlessly, the party downstairs probably still too loud to hear a tiny cellphone. She'll have to go back and ask for help directly.

Phone still ringing, she turns to the stairs, but Maka stops short at the top of the flight. The couple down the stairwell are really getting after it, embarrassing moans and rustling sounds reaching her flushing ears. She backpedals to her locked door, not wanting to get in the middle of that. She doesn't know why she's the one embarrassed when they're the ones getting hot and heavy, but her face is steaming, regardless. "C'mon Black Star, pick up," she pleads, trying her key again and hoping against all hope she's mistaken about her failure. Maka leans her weight on the door in defeat.

Sourly, she admits this would be a great time for Cider Ghost Thing to give up the refreshments and e-shopping to let her in.

_Chink_ _._

Maka's eyes snap open, feeling her body fall forward. She stumbles inside, twirling with the swinging door and and regaining her footing in the dark, clutching her book and gift bag tightly to her chest. Her phone snaps shut as it falls to the carpet, her keys jingling from their dangling spot in the keyhole they don't belong in.

...That had sounded a lot like a door being unlocked.

She swallows nervously. Bending low, Maka places her gift bag on the floor. She's reluctant to let go of her book, and keeps this firmly in hand. She retrieves her keys, shuts the door, and slowly turns around to face the Christmas tree that she's pretty sure she'd turned off before she left. The familiar crimson glow of lights quietly illuminates thick branches and the postcards it has shed to the floor again, minus the one that always remains.

Come to think of it, ever since Black Star had brought the pine into her apartment, her home has been swimming in weirdness. Leaning back on the door, she regards it fuzzily. Her head feels like a fish bowl and the goldfish that is supposed to represent her brain is either belly-up or just plain missing. Instead, it has been replaced with one of those little treasure chests that occasionally releases illogical bubbles whenever she opens her mouth.

"...Who are you?" she breathes, the next inhale after her absurd question laced with mulling spices and throaty cinnamon. Her eyes fall shut, taking in the warm scent of heady cider that has been plaguing her all season long. It spreads through her chest and heats her clear to her toes.

Somehow, she's not surprised to hear her radio kick on without her assistance. It's the same show as always, though it's not the same disc jockey, which makes sense because she's downstairs at Tsubaki's party. In her stead is a steady male voice, smooth and articulate. It sounds almost familiar, actually.

" _Ready_ _for_ _another_ _hour_ _of_ _Quality_ _?_ _Stay_ _inside_ _and_ _listen_ _awhile_ _-_ _it_ _'_ _s_ _supposed_ _to_ _get_ _chilly_ _._ _K_ _-_ _DWMA_ _will_ _keep_ _you_ _warm_ _,_ _tonight_ _."_

'Baby it's Cold Outside' breaks into the air, and Maka feels a fluttering around her legs that she knows isn't coming from her cat. Her fingers tighten around her book while something caresses up her leg and lights on her hip. From there, it shifts to her wrist, easing her fingers open which clench her keys in a death grip. They fall to the carpet with a muffled clatter. A second something (oh, she may as well just admit they feel like _hands_ ) moves up her opposite shoulder to brush her hair away from her collar, warm fingers teasing her neck.

Eyes sliding halfway open, she notes she can easily see the tree, and the only giveaway to the presence in front of her is a faint shimmering, like looking through boiling air on a hot day. That settles it, then. She's officially bonkers. She'd claimed Christmas was crazy, and now that she's partaken of the merriment, she has to pay up with neuroses.

Her blood feels like steam running through her body. Of course- after being surrounded by countless people necking, she _would_ end up concocting a hallucination to seduce her. Because that's what it's doing, and it's _working_ _._ Hot hands seem to be drawing her closer, though to what, she can't see. Fingers ghost across her jaw and tilt her head up a small notch.

She's being pressed against... a body. She hopes it's a body. No! She hopes it's nothing at all! She hopes this is a dream!

It's so very sturdy. Maka hears nothing, but she thinks she feels air puffing near her ear, invisible lips sweeping across her neck.

"Did you let me in?" she whispers, heart determinedly chugging along to the jazzy beat from the radio, curious and spellbound. In reply, her shoulder is faintly squeezed before a touch traces down her spine in a slow-motion reenactment of the day before. Her shivers are uncontrollable, despite her skin feeling so heated it breaks out into a sweat. "T-thanks. For unlocking the... Uh. Thing."

Familiar hands caress her face. Cinnamon seeps into her skin, her knees feeling a gentle touch away from buckling. Maka suffers an intense whirling of deja vu, murmurings of a deep voice echoing in the back of her mind. Light fingers slide down her neck just as warmth teases her lips.

" _I_ _ought_ _to_ _say_ _'_ _no_ _,_ _no_ _,_ _no_ _,_ _sir_ _'-"  
_ " _(_ _Mind_ _if_ _I_ _move_ _in_ _closer_ _?)"  
_ " _At_ _least_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _gonna_ _say_ _that_ _I_ _tried_ _~"_

Steaming breath mingles with hers, and she knows before it even happens that this kiss will be much more memorable than the one she'd been given under a sprig of greenery from a stranger. An unseen mouth glides across her lips so naturally and satisfying. A large palm boldly wraps around her small breast.

Wait. How had that conversation gone? Something about liking small 'tits' and... that voice.

_**BLAM** _ _**!** _

She volleys what she assumes is her visitor's face with a squeal and a backhanded swing to the right with her book. Simultaneously, as if impacting the apparition is mirrored, the Christmas tree tilts to one side, its new stand cracking loudly, and crashes to the floor in the same direction. Whatever mind boggling spell that had shrouded her abruptly clears up, though her mind is still a little sluggish from the eggnog. Stupid eggnog! Her liver should be working harder than this!

Maka stomps over to an adjacent wall to flip the light switch, glaring at the space near the front door just in time to see a thin shadow slink across the floor and hide in the fallen tree.

"Ah-HAH!" she pants, pointing accusingly at the tree with her eyes wide and possibly maniacal. "I'm on to you, Mister, uh, Mister P-peverted... _SOUL_ _EATER_ _!_ My soul is mine!" And with that, she scrambles over to her kitchen counter, grabs her new door keys, and flees the apartment, music playing after her like a plea.


	9. 4 Google Searches

She feels like the NPPD.

_BANG_ _BANG_ _BANG_ _!_

The occupants of what remains of the party must think she really does belongs to a police department, because the karaoke blasting behind the closed door is abruptly shut off. Tsubaki is still fixing the hair framing her face as she opens the door. She looks surprised to see Maka again.

"Oh, Maka! Did you forget something?" she asks, holding the door aside for Maka to walk through. "...Are you alright?" The party resumes where it left off, Patti swinging her microphone around by the cord to a beat that is turned up as soon as all threat of police intervention is nullified.

What to say? 'The tree you gave me is haunted and the ghost just copped a feel when I got home'? "I uhh, can I borrow your computer a minute?"

Tsubaki gives her a strange look, but doesn't deny her in the slightest. "...Sure? You know where it is." The question regarding why she must use a computer at midnight on a Friday just minutes after leaving to go to sleep is written all over her face, but she doesn't mention it. "I thought you had a laptop?"

A shiver crawls through her. "It's compromised," she replies flatly, stepping aside for a few other occupants trying to leave. She's pretty sure the moment she admits that some other-worldy being has used her laptop to finish up her Christmas shopping, Tsubaki would tell her to just go back to bed. As others bid the hostess goodnight and thank her for the party, Maka slides along an adjacent wall, gathering static and tinsel to sneak off to the small spare room where Tsubaki and Black Star keep their desktop computer. She has socialized enough for the evening.

The office chair squeaks as she sits down. Maka moves the mouse to wake up the sleeping machine, eager to get on the internet while everyone else is still occupied by the festivities. After the monitor flashes on, she's thwarted by a password protection screen. The only account available is 'BlackStar'.

Well, okay. It can't be that hard. She slides out the keyboard tray from the small glass desk and types 'TheMightier' in the password field.

Wrong.

Maybe no capitals. "themightier'.

Wrong.

"TheMightiest'?

Wrong.

Wheezing her impatience, she groans at the ceiling. Without looking, her fingers simply type 'GOD'.

Bingo. "Black Star, you idiot," she mumbles, hurriedly clicking on an internet browser and heading straight for Google. She'll have to lecture him about secure passwords later.

She searches for 'haunted Christmas tree' and is assaulted by all manner of Halloween and Christmas mash-ups. An image search grants her trees covered in spider webs and decorated with skeletons, creepy tree trunks with faces in them, and many other things that have nothing to do what she's looking for. Frowning, she clicks over to a text search and scrolls through pages and pages of inconsequential links.

Scanning over the description of each site, the part of her that is desperate to convince herself she's hallucinated this entire holiday questions her actions. Why is she here? There's a party going on, her body is exhausted, and if it really bothers her that much, she can probably camp out under some mistletoe and hope for some minor action. In any case, who in their right mind believes they've been groped by a tree spirit? She should be looking up addresses of local mental institutions.

Slumped in the chair while the initial beats to a fast tempo song begin in the other room, Maka sighs, scrolling heavily with the little mouse wheel. She's just about to give it up, but a flash of purple slides by nestled among generic blue hyperlinks. She sits up at full attention, quickly moving back up the search page to find it.

The fact that this random site has already been clicked is made even more curious by its title. "'Paranormal Pines'?" Maka murmurs aloud. She double-clicks the link and is brought to a gaudily colored forum in typical Christmas fashion. Her mouse's arrow icon has been replaced by a little bundle of mistletoe and bells. It leaves trails of pixelated snow wherever she moves. Despite her displeasure, the titles of various sub-forums and threads catch her attention. She skims over 'Caring For Your Tree Spirit', 'Is My House Safe From Fire?', and 'Tree Foster Care', and goes straight to 'Testimonials'.

The thread has well over two hundred pages, spanning over multiple topics and embedded with images that make the web browser sluggish from loading all at once. A lot of posts start with a generic explanation of weird things happening in the poster's house- flickering lights, electronics working on their own, unexplainable smells- which excites her because this is exactly what she's been looking for! The more posts detailing similar experiences, the more hope she has for her mental health.

Unfortunately, this means that either a whole lot of people are hallucinating, or she truly has a freakin' ghost tree in her apartment.

Maka skips around to only read posts with pictures, but the photos are generally just depicting ordinary people, though a lot more people seem to dye their hair than Maka had originally believed. Almost every photo has at least one person in it with a vivid or at least unnatural hair color. Ten pages in and she finds something more interesting. It's a grainy, overexposed photo of a Christmas tree, but circled in the picture is a human-shaped shadow cast on a wall, lurking behind branches.

Now this is more like it!

" _This_ _was_ _a_ _pine_ _tree_ _that_ _stood_ _in_ _a_ _common_ _room_ _in_ _my_ _dormitory_ _._ _A_ _student_ _who_ _stayed_ _in_ _the_ _room_ _next_ _to_ _mine_ _tried_ _to_ _dissect_ _this_ _tree_ _,_ _claiming_ _that_ _it_ _was_ _the_ _source_ _of_ _the_ _problems_ _he_ _'_ _d_ _been_ _having_ _._ _Frequently_ _his_ _things_ _were_ _stolen_ _or_ _put_ _in_ _places_ _he_ _had_ _never_ _been_ _,_ _and_ _he_ _blamed_ _this_ _on_ _this_ _tree_ _._ _At_ _first_ _,_ _I_ _thought_ _he_ _was_ _just_ _being_ _his_ _usual_ _self_ _(_ _he_ _'_ _d_ _always_ _been_ _a_ _little_ _strange_ _),_ _though_ _after_ _awhile_ _even_ _I_ _could_ _not_ _refute_ _that_ _strange_ _things_ _were_ _happening_ _throughout_ _the_ _entire_ _dorm_ _._

" _However_ _,_ _once_ _he_ _stole_ _the_ _tree_ _from_ _the_ _common_ _room_ _on_ _Christmas_ _Eve_ _and_ _brought_ _it_ _into_ _his_ _own_ _for_ _'_ _science_ _',_ _I_ _intervened_ _,_ _because_ _it_ _was_ _absurd_ _and_ _he_ _was_ _making_ _so_ _much_ _of_ _a_ _racket_ _that_ _I_ _couldn_ _'_ _t_ _sleep_ _._ _There_ _was_ _a_ _girl_ _that_ _dormed i_ _n_ _the_ _room_ _across_ _from_ _him_ _,_ _and_ _it_ _seemed_ _she_ _couldn_ _'_ _t_ _sleep_ _either_ _._ _Together_ _,_ _we_ _tried_ _to_ _drag_ _the_ _tree_ _back_ _to_ _the_ _common_ _room_ _,_ _but_ _it_ _was_ _so_ _heavy_ _that_ _we_ _just_ _put_ _it_ _in_ _my_ _room_ _instead_ _._

" _I_ _tried_ _to_ _get_ _back_ _to_ _sleep_ _,_ _but_ _I_ _was_ _overpowered_ _by_ _the_ _smell_ _of_ _toothpaste_ _,_ _and_ _there_ _were_ _these noises_ _that_ _kept_ _waking_ _me_ _up_ _._ _I_ _reached_ _for_ _my_ _camera_ _and_ _made_ _sure_ _the_ _flash_ _was_ _on_ _,_ _and_ _snapped_ _this_ _one_ _in_ _the_ _dark_ _._

" _I_ _'_ _m_ _sure_ _we_ _all_ _know_ _what_ _happened_ _at_ _midnight_ _."_

That's it? What happened at midnight? The following posts are from other users, either congratulating the original poster with such a good find, or describing their own encounters. Irritated, Maka scrolls back to the post with the tree photo, clicking on the poster's username and navigating to all the user's forum contributions.

He or she has a high ranking on the forum, with post and reply count up in the thousands. Excerpts from the person's posts are displayed.

" _..._ _have_ _been_ _frequently_ _reported_ _to_ _be_ _very_ _amorous_ _by_ _several_ _users_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _needy_ _,_ _attention_ _-_ _seeking_ _,_ _with_ _several_ _claims_ _that_ _they_ _'_ _bond_ _'_ _with_ _their_ _caretaker_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _photo_ _was_ _taken_ _on_ _Christmas_ _Eve_ _, 1988._ _I_ _'_ _ve_ _recently_ _altered_ _the_ _contrast_ _for_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _had_ _a_ _child_ _,_ _though_ _it_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _work_ _out_ _between_ _us_ _._ _She_ _however_ _,_ _is_ _very_ _much_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _being_ _said_ _,_ _all_ _I_ _can_ _say_ _is_ _have_ _clothes_ _ready_ _,_ _or_ _face_ _a_ _lot_ _of_ _embarrassment_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _only_ _assume_ _the_ _majority_ _of_ _the_ _students_ _favored_ _the_ _smell_ _of_ _candy_ _canes_ _,_ _or_ _..."_

"And here I thought you were lookin' up porn. I'm disappointed."

Maka starts so badly she accidentally shoves the mouse and it careens off the desk to crash to the floor. She scrambles after it, checking for damage and quickly shutting the browser window. "B-Black Star! You scared me." Then she whips her head around and glares, finally catching up with what he'd said. "Porn? Are you mistaking me for you, Mister Jiggly Juggs Dot Com?"

Black Star gives her a worried look and sways slightly to the right. "Who told?"

She swivels around in the office chair, regarding him grimly. "You used my laptop, genius." He shrugs.

"I do what I want! I'm a god."  
"Mmhmm, your password sucks, by the way. Are you drunk?"

Crossing his arms over his chest, he nods. "Absolutely." Maka notes he's already put on the shirt she'd gifted him with, and is pleased to note that her color choice perfectly matches his extraordinary blue hair. "'Baki said you looked like you seen a ghost," he shoots at her, head tilted too far to the right while he watches her.

All that she'd read on the forum comes washing back to her in a rush. She really wants to read more information, particularly from that one user. She also kind of feels the need to bring the whole ghost tree thing up to him and Tsubaki both, but the topic is so off the wall and strange, she doubts they would immediately believe her. "Don't worry about it," she says, feeling troubled. Maka is seconds away from shooing him back to his party, where he is surely missed, but something catches her attention. "Is Tsubaki baking again? Isn't it kind of late?"

Black Star shakes his head rapidly, not prepared for the subject change. "Do wha?"

"Is she-" she tries to repeat, but takes a deep inhale instead. "Doesn't it smell like gingerbread?"

His eyebrows raise a notch and he makes a show of sniffing the air. "You can smell that?" he asks.

Skeptical, she blurts out, "Can't you?"

"Not really... She uh, made some awhile ago. Guess I'm just used to it?"

Maka frowns. "I guess. Anyway, I'm gonna look up a few more things and I'll go back home."

"Whatever, Twiggy. Watch all the porn you want."

"I-it's not porn! It's. Um. Belated Christmas shopping, okay? So go away. _Stupid_ _."_

Black Star snorts at her grand retort. "Uh huh. Want me to shut the door to leave you'n yer 'shopping' in peace?"

"Yes, thank you," she grits between her clenched teeth. She sourly regards the laughing man as he begins to shut the office door behind him. He comes back in before it closes all the way, however.

"Hey, by the way," he slurs, though he looks rather sober staring so seriously at her face. "You'll tell us, right? If something's wrong."

Not expecting this sudden care for her well-being, she opens her mouth and chokes out a "Y-yeah, of course I will," while nodding dumbly.

"'Cause you're one of us. So... I don't care who it is, if anyone's givin' you hell, I'll snap 'em, alright?"

She doesn't know if she feels touched or mistaken for someone else. "Black Star, uh, I. Um."

 _ **"**_ _ **Alright**_ _ **?"**_ he repeats expectantly.

"O-kay," she slowly squeaks out, not sure what is going on anymore, and feeling like she's missed something important. "Thanks?"

After regarding her for a beat, Black Star merely says, "Yep," and then turns to leave again, raucously belching on the way out.

"Gross!" she yells, though the world seems to have been put back to rights with his obnoxious bodily noises. She waits a few more seconds and then hurriedly turns back around in the chair.

Crap. What had that username been, again? Maka searches through the browser history and finds the last page she had been on, but it keeps redirecting her back to the home page of the forum. Annoyed, she again wades through the multiple pages of the 'Testimonials' thread, looking for the one picture of the tree. The name had started with a 'G' or a 'Y' or something...

There it is! The overexposed photo. She clicks on the username again, happy to have found her place (YucatanLvr! She'd known it'd been a 'Y'!), and scrolls through the user's posts.

" _..._ _being_ _said_ _,_ _all_ _I_ _can_ _say_ _is_ _have_ _clothes_ _ready_ _,_ _or_ _face_ _a_ _lot_ _of_ _embarrassment_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _only_ _assume_ _the_ _majority_ _of_ _the_ _students_ _favored_ _the_ _smell_ _of_ _candy_ _canes_ _,_ _or_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _can_ _'_ _t_ _just_ _simply_ _walk_ _away_ _like_ _nothing_ _is_ _going_ _on_ _!_ _You_ _have_ _a_ _responsibility_ _now_ _..."  
_ " _..._ _aware_ _of_ _all_ _what_ _this_ _entails_ _._ _Please_ _do_ _not_ _call_ _this_ _number_ _unless_ _you_ _are_ _positive_ _..."_

Positive of what? Being haunted? Oh, she's sure of it! Maka almost gleefully clicks on this last excerpt, opening the full post and hoping whatever number that is mentioned is some kind of extermination Ghost Buster service.

" _After_ _hundreds_ _of_ _PM_ _'_ _s_ _regarding_ _individuals_ _wanting_ _to_ _acquire_ _one_ _of_ _these_ _tree_ _-_ _spirits_ _,_ _I_ _will_ _reluctantly_ _share_ _this_ _information_ _._

_Please_ _,_ _I_ _can_ _not_ _stress_ _enough_ _,_ _this_ _is_ _not_ _some_ _pet_ _,_ _but_ _a_ _very_ _intelligent_ _,_ _very_ _human_ _consciousness_ _you_ _are_ _bringing_ _in_ _to_ _your_ _life_ _._ _And_ _very_ _likely_ _for_ _life_ _._ _Please_ _read_ _every_ _inch_ _of_ _this_ _forum_ _before_ _doing_ _anything_ _,_ _and_ _be_ _aware_ _of_ _all_ _what_ _this_ _entails_ _._ _Please_ _do_ _not_ _call_ _this_ _number_ _unless_ _you_ _are_ _positive_ _this_ _is_ _something_ _and_ _someone_ _you_ _can_ _commit_ _to_ _."_

Listed is a ten digit number. Maka sighs. This isn't what she'd been hoping for at all. She doesn't want another tree invading her house! She wants to get rid of the first one!

Well, maybe they will have some information on what to do about this spirit of hers. From what it sounds like, after glancing through the rest of the thread, people would pay an arm and a leg just to have one in their house on purpose! Maka types the number into her cell phone, something in the back of her head bugging her about the phone number.

The line rings several times, and Maka nervously scrolls further down the thread. She notices a few lines of another post by the same author, and halts to read it, but hears the other end of the line pick up.

"H-hello?"

She's rewarded with silence and a beep. A robotic voice greets her. _"_ _The_ _business_ _you_ _have_ _called_ _will_ _be_ _open_ _tomorrow_ _at_ _:_ _Seven_ _._ _Ay_ _._ _Em_ _._ _Please_ _leave_ _a_ _message_ _,_ _or_ _try_ _again_ _during_ _business_ _hours_ _._ _Thank_ _you_ _."_

Maka slumps in her chair. Of course they wouldn't be open in the middle of the night! She leaves a choppy message and her number. Maybe they'll call her back tomorrow. She snaps her phone shut and yawns tiredly. Now what? Maybe Tsubaki will let her sleep on the couch tonight.

Glancing at the screen once more, she sees that other post by Yuca-whatever their name is.

" _Of_ _course_ _they_ _can_ _die_ _!_ _What_ _affects_ _the_ _tree_ _affects_ _them_ _as_ _well_ _._ _If_ _they_ _die_ _of_ _thirst_ _,_ _you_ _have_ _killed_ _not_ _just_ _a_ _plant_ _,_ _but_ _another_ _being_ _._ _You_ _can_ _'_ _t_ _just_ _simply_ _walk_ _away_ _like_ _nothing_ _is_ _going_ _on_ _!_ _You_ _have_ _a_ _responsibility_ _now_ _._ _This_ _is_ _not_ _some_ _tree_ _you_ _put_ _out_ _by_ _the_ _curb_ _at_ _the_ _end_ _of_ _Christmas_ _."_

The post goes on at length about the user's personal experience, but something keeps her from reading the rest of it. Maka stands abruptly, the office chair's wheels squealing as they roll across the floor.

It can die. The creepy thing in her apartment that's been driving her crazy, tearing down her shower curtain, whispering things to her in her sleep...

" _But_ _if_ _you_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _do_ _it_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _die_ _."_

The Soul Eater can die, and currently the tree is sprawled across her living room floor, stand broken and probably leaking everywhere. She wants to feel good about it, but she can't. Hadn't she wanted her house exorcised moments ago? But she can't help but recall comforting hands caressing her face and a warm mug of cider.

Maka's fingers reach up and land lightly on her lips. She can't knowingly kill someone she's shared a kiss with.


	10. 3 Ghost Lips

She's killed it. Her 'paranormal pine' rests at her feet, lights burned out. Her socks are wet from the carpet. Her apartment smells like her apartment. The radio is off. She is decidedly not being groped. Maybe she gave the spirit a concussion. Can they get concussions? Feeling increasingly guilty and stupid as the seconds wear on, she says to the tree, "Hello?"

Silence.

It's just a tree. It's just a tree with a perverted ghost attached to it that a whole cult of people online adore and go to great lengths to acquire, and she's just an innocent bystander and possible murderer.

"You shouldn't have scared me," she says. "You shouldn't have ripped my shower curtain and peeked while I was in the shower!" Maka berates the tree as she struggles with the branches and haphazardly uprights the pine. The stand it rests in pops and cracks with the abuse. "The internet said you spirit things are really affectionate or whatever, that it's in your nature, but I don't care if- wah! If, if you're _Mother_ _Nature_ _!_ You don't just go around grabbing people's boobs unless they say!"

The tree is determined to lean and fall back on the floor. She needs to find a way to prop it up somehow. She cringes when the stand cracks even further as she lets the tree rest on the wall. A thin layer of shed pine needles covers the immediate area. "I haven't forgotten what you did to Blair, either," she states, though her heart isn't in it. Maka hurries to the kitchen for a broom and uses this to help prop the tree into a standing position.

When she's hunkered under the sagging boughs with a roll of duct tape, she feels the need to defend her actions. "I'm only doing this," she grunts, pulling the roll around the stand and trying to tape the cracks shut, "-because you helped find Patti's present. A-and for letting me in. And because I found out that you can die and, well-" Maka rips off the end of the tape with her teeth, "It would really suck to be a Christmas tree that dies on Christmas. Or the day before, whatever."

It's not the best fix-up job, but it'll have to do. She returns to the kitchen and finds her pitcher that she has become familiar with, lately. Filled with water, she climbs back underneath the tree and pours it, watching for leaks. The stand still seems functional, for the most part. She straightens and replaces the soggy, argyle tree skirt.

Sitting on the floor, she notes the tree is not as perky or fluffy as it had been before. A lone postcard clings lopsidedly in the branches, and ropes of white garland droop with tangles. Her plastic broom handle bends from the pressure of propping up a slouching pine.

"It was a mistake," she says, quietly. "Tsubaki bought me a tree because I'm the Grinch, and I've been a Grinch since Mama moved away, but she's my friend and wanted to cheer me up and was just being nice, like she always is. But you weren't supposed to come here. I wasn't supposed to have a tree, much less a haunted one! I was planning on just waiting it out and getting on with life, not have a ghost keep me up all night and- and- ...turn on my radio when I felt lonely.

"Because I don't need it. I don't need any company, because I already have enough. I mean, I know Mama will probably not come back, but Papa's been waiting for me this whole time. I have him. And I have Tsubaki and Black Star and Patti, and I made some new friends tonight, so I don't need a tree spirit, okay?

"There's a ton of people waiting for- for- guys like you, so tomorrow- or I guess today- I'll call that number again and see if maybe we can put you somewhere... Give you to someone who needs company more than I do on Christmas."

Maka stands, her feet and knees cold and clammy from the water her clothes have absorbed from the wet floor. Surely a tree can't die after an hour with no water. She's not sure. The lack of any kind of response from the Soul Eater leaves her even more unsure. She doesn't know what else she can do, other than get ready for bed.

"Thanks for the cider."

She wonders if she really wants a peaceful night of sleep or not.

* * *

" _You_ _fight_ _dirty_ _."_

Maka sighs into her pillow, fingers twitching.

" _You_ _realize_ _books_ _are_ _made_ _of_ _ **paper**_ _,_ _right_ _?_ _Hitting_ _me_ _with_ _that_ _thing_ _is_ _just_ _all_ _sorts_ _of_ _wrong_ _."_

Amusement laces the deep voice tickling behind her ears and she lets out a hum of complaint.

" _Sorry_ _._ _About_ _the_ _boob_ _thing_ _._ _Guess_ _I_ _got_ _kinda_ _carried_ _away_ _."_

She rolls over, eyebrows furrowing with irritation. "Yeah y'did," she agrees. A whispery chuckle sighs across her face. Light fingers brush her bangs away from her closed eyes. "Sorry I bashed yer'face."

" _Don_ _'_ _t_ _worry_ _about_ _it_ _._ _I_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _even_ _have_ _a_ _face_ _."_

This only makes her confused, because how could they have kissed if he doesn't have a face? The more she tries to make sense of it, the quieter his voice becomes, so she stops trying. She wants to keep listening.

" _Speaking_ _of_ _,_ _even_ _if_ _you_ _decide_ _to_ _..._ _get_ _rid_ _of_ _me_ _,_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _still_ _glad_ _for_ _you_ _,_ _Grinchy_ _._ _You_ _figured_ _what_ _to_ _do_ _for_ _Christmas_ _."_

Had she?

" _Next_ _time_ _you_ _see_ _Star_ _,_ _call_ _him_ _'_ _Nuts_ _for_ _Brains_ _'._ _He_ _'_ _ll_ _laugh_ _."_

She laughs a little herself, but it dissolves into silence. She feels somewhat depressed.

" _Hey_ _,_ _uh_ _._ _Seeing_ _as_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _be_ _leaving_ _soon_ _,_ _could_ _I_ _have_ _a_ _kiss_ _?_ _You_ _know_ _,_ _for_ _goodbye_ _."_

Well. One kiss wouldn't hurt, she supposes. At least he's asking this time. She mumbles out, "'Kay," as her eyes hazily slide open, bright light seeping through her lashes. Warm lips peck at her own a moment before pausing and slowly slanting fully over her mouth. Heated fingers trace her cheekbone and jawline, setting her blood ablaze.

He pulls away, his breath puffing against her. _"_ _Whoo_ _._ _Okay_ _._ _I_ _should_ _,_ _hah_ _,_ _probably_ _go_ _..."_

Maka moans into the next kiss this time, and she regrets it, because she feels the pull of wakefulness grasping her and dragging her away at the sound of her own voice. An arm collects her and pulls her closer, her body melding against a ghost for a few thunderous heart beats before letting her down again. She shivers at the chill left behind.

" _Ah_ _._ _I_ _wish_ _I_ _knew_ _y_ _-"_

_BANG_ _BANG_ _BANG_ _!_

She flies upright, gasping for breath. Squinting painfully at the sunlight streaming through her window, she shields her eyes with a hand while the other rests over her galloping heart. What time is it?

That's when it collides into her- the smell of warm cider. The hand on her chest flies to her mouth, which tingles with a residual sensation. She can almost remember her dream. Is the tree still alive?

"Soul Eater?" she calls aloud quietly. "...Soul?"

_BANG_ _BANG_ _BANG_ _!_

Maka jerks with surprise, then hurries out of bed. Guess that's what woke her up, she muses. The smell of cinnamon permeates her entire apartment, and she feels both relieved and excited. A glance at the microwave as she passes her kitchen tells her it's nearly noon. She's slept in after getting to bed so late.

She's not sure who she's expecting on the other side of the door, but she finds herself somewhat disappointed with the monotone uniform of the postal service. A ...woman? Man? A very androgynous person with hair color similar to cotton candy wheezes at Maka's door, leaning against a large box. The mail carrier smells almost as sweet, giving Maka the impression of freshly baked sugar cookies.

"I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it up all those stairs," the person says, gasping for breath and handing a digital clipboard type device to her for signing.

"Ah- Sorry for making you carry it so far!" Maka exclaims. "Thank you very much."

The mail carrier blushes, taking the clipboard back after she gives her signature. "Y-you're welcome."

It falls out of her mouth before she even realizes it. "Merry Christmas," she says.

Maka watches a small smile grow on the other person's face. "You too," the carrier says, before giving a shy wave and heading back down the stairs. "I really like your tree!" the person calls while still in earshot.

Well, that was kind of nice. If they only knew her tree had a grab-happy spirit living in it.

She has no inkling as to what she's just signed for. Dragging the large box into her living room, she reminded of the story of that one person from the forum (Yuca-something, was it?), trying to drag a large tree into their room on Christmas Eve.

She catches her breath, standing next to her tree. It seems to look a little more lively, and, once more, relief blooms through her chest. She seems to have either forgiven it during her sleep, or has fully embraced the supernatural into her life. Maybe both.

Anyway, had someone sent her a present? She wonders who would send her anything, and why something so large. Picking at the packing tape and pulling it away from the cardboard box, Maka digs through an obscene amount of packing peanuts to reveal googly eyes and tufted ears.

Oh! It's Patti's giraffe. She'd forgotten already. The younger girl will be pleased. "Nice choice, Soul Eater," she says aloud, lightly swatting one of the branches. To her delight, the red lights flicker to life, and she smiles.

Her grin doesn't last long, quickly turning into a frown. Why is she getting so chummy with this tree? Maka's eyes fall upon the still-tilted Christmas card her mother had sent her years ago. That stupid shark grins at her sideways with a cheer that has abruptly left her. This is no time to suddenly be friendly with this... whatever it is! She already has plans to call that number from the forum, and find a new home for her tree spirit. If anything, she should be distancing herself from it, in case it 'bonds' with her like that person talked about!

Maka squints her eyes, trying to picture her living room without the green pine towering in it. It feels very empty, and she looks away. She sighs at the stuffed giraffe staring at her from a sea of styrofoam. She's tempted to focus on wrapping Patti's gift and procrastinate calling that number for just a little bit longer.

Her phone rings from across the apartment. Is she just really popular today? Gut sinking, she wonders if it's that tree place calling back after hearing her message. She's very aware of the pine behind her as she leaves to her bedroom to find her phone.

To her surprise, it's her father.

"Papa?"

" _H_ _-_ _hello_ _?"_ He sounds surprised. _"_ _I_ _,_ _er_ _,_ _I_ _hope_ _this_ _isn_ _'_ _t_ _a_ _bad_ _time_ _."_

It's noon on a Saturday and Maka looks down to find herself still wearing pajamas. Crap. She'd answered the front door in this! "No... this is fine," she replies with chagrin that her father misinterprets.

" _I_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _want_ _to_ _interrupt_ _anything_ _-"_

"It's fine, really," she tries to reassure him. It dawns on her why this conversation feels strange- the only times she speaks to Spirit on the phone is when she calls him first. She normally lets the phone ring until her voicemail takes over. Maka shoddily attempts a cheerful demeanor. "Uhh, did you need something?"

" _Well_ _,_ _I_ _was_ _wondering_ _if_ _you_ _decided_ _about_ _tomorrow_ _."_

Maka blinks, head blank. "Tomorrow?" She hears something that sounds like keys landing on a table, and she instantly pictures her father coming home from work, sitting in his recliner- fueled by repeated memories from her childhood. He makes a small sigh of relief as he relaxes.

" _Mph_ _._ _Christmas_ _,_ _honey_ _,"_ he replies, not sounding surprised any longer.

"OH! Oh. Right." She feels stupid. "Sorry Dad, I've just been... preoccupied." What with the ghost trees and all. And after last night's Christmas party, it already feels like the holiday is over.

Spirit sounds only a fraction disappointed. _"_ _I_ _understand_ _,_ _sweetheart_ _._ _Maybe_ _some_ _other_ _time_ _then_ _."_

"Wait, what? No! I mean- no that's not what I meant, Papa-"

" _You_ _..._ _What_ _?"_

"I, um. I'm coming tomorrow."

She feels illogically flustered at the hopefulness in his voice. _"_ _Really_ _?"_

"W-Well I'm sure Blair wants her presents and, uh, ...yeah."

" _Of_ _course_ _,"_ Spirit readily agrees, but she hears his smile and it's practically radioactive through the phone line. Maka ends up screwing her lips together in a pouty fish-face to keep herself from smiling with him. She flops on her bed backwards, legs bouncing.

"So what time should I be there," she asks sourly, even though her father isn't fooled.

" _Whenever_ _you_ _feel_ _like_ _it_ _._ _Ah_ _,_ _erm_ _..._ _and_ _feel_ _free_ _to_ _,_ _uh_ _,_ _invite_ _your_ _friends_ _,_ _if_ _they_ _'_ _re_ _interested_ _."_

This is new. "What happened to no punk-asses, Papa?"

" _I_ _know_ _,_ _I_ _know_ _._ _Well_ _._ _Christmas_ _Spirit_ _and_ _all_ _that_ _._ _Pun_ _intended_ _."_

She scoffs. "Noon sounds good."

" _Noon_ _it_ _is_ _._ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _even_ _make_ _som_ _-_ _ **BEEP**_ _ **BEEP**_ _ **."**_

"Ahg!" Maka winces, pulling the phone away from her ear. She speaks a little louder to cover the distance. "Hang on a sec, someone's calling."

Peering at the screen, her lungs stop. The number has no name, but she recognizes the digits as the ones she had called last night. She frowns at herself and her stupid dread-filled nerves.

" _Do_ _you_ _need_ _to_ _hang_ _up_ _?_ _It_ _'_ _s_ _alright_ _if_ _-"_

"No-" she blurts out, shoving the phone back to her face and wondering why her thumb has already pressed the 'ignore call' button, forcing the caller to voicemail like she normally does for her father. "Don't worry about it. I'll... I'll call them back later."

Will she? She's not sure if she isn't lying.

"Is there anything I should bring? A pie?"

" _Whatever_ _makes_ _you_ _happy_ _,_ _darling_ _."_

"Oh, Stein says 'hi', by the way."

* * *

They actually hang up after having an almost normal conversation. Afterwards, Maka further distracts herself with eating some breakfast (or perhaps lunch) and uses about half of a roll of wrapping paper to painstakingly mummify Patti's giraffe.

No weird things occur during this time, and she wonders if the tree spirit is keeping his distance after hearing her long spiel last night. She supposes if she had heard the person taking care of her say that they were going to get rid of her the next day, she wouldn't say or do much with them either. Maka returns to her room, feeling it would be callous and strange to check her voicemail in front of her Christmas tree. After all, she'd have to call that number back and discuss how to get rid of him. IT. Get rid of it.

She needs to distance herself, too.

The automated system for her voicemail asks for her password, and she plugs this in to it while shutting her bedroom door behind her.

" _You_ _have_ _:_ one! _new_ _message_ _._ First _new_ _message_ _:_

" _I_ _thought_ _that_ _was_ _your_ _voice_ _."_

...Whose voice is this? The woman sounds familiar, but Maka can't place it immediately.

" _I_ _told_ _you_ _it_ _was_ _Spirit_ _'_ _s_ _girl_ _!"_

Maka hears a deep masculine voice in the background, but can't make out his words.

" _Anyway_ _,_ _I_ _thought_ _you_ _had_ _our_ _personal_ _number_ _though_ _._ _It_ _'_ _s_ _only_ _one_ _digit_ _off_ _from_ _this_ _one_ _._ _No_ _need_ _to_ _be_ _so_ _formal_ _about_ _it_ _._ _Has_ _Soul_ _been_ _a_ _troublemaker_ _?_ _I_ _told_ _him_ _to_ _behave_ _but_ _he_ _'_ _s_ _always_ _been_ _a_ _bit_ _of_ _a_ _rebel_ _,_ _you_ _know_ _,_ _just_ _like_ _his_ _brother_ _._ _Anyway_ _,_ _if_ _you_ _need_ _any_ _help_ _before_ _tonight_ _,_ _don_ _'_ _t_ _hesitate_ _to_ _call_ _us_ _back_ _,_ _or_ _even_ _have_ _Black_ _Star_ _get_ _a_ _hold_ _of_ _us_ _for_ _you_ _._ _Merry_ _Christmas_ _!"_

None of the words make sense. They make even less sense when the woman's face pops into her head. Maka's eyes widen and her heart lurches to the moon.

Mira Nygus.


	11. 2 Burning Trees

" _To_ _delete_ _this_ _message_ _,_ _press_ _seven_ _._ _To_ _listen_ _again_ _,_ _press_ _pound_ _."_

Maka Albarn stares at the small bit of carpet between her feet as her mind races into the fog of clueless confusion.

Her phone beeps as she automatically presses the button out of habit.

" _Message_ _deleted_ _."  
_ "WHAT."  
" _No_ _new_ _messages_ _."_

Curse her auto-pilot! She wants to hear it again! Her vision swims, and she slowly crouches to the floor, feeling the weight of **weird** pressing on her shoulders.

Okay. Keep calm. What had that message said? It was Nygus, talking about... about Soul. Who is Soul? What kind of a name is that? Except she knows one thing-slash-person-slash-whatever that has 'Soul' in his name.

And what does Black Star have to do with- **NO.** What does **Mira Nygus** have to do with Paranormal Pines?

With a strangled gasp, Maka crawls to the living room, very deliberately not making eye contact with the tr- _The_ _tree_ _does_ _not_ _have_ _eyes_ _to_ _make_ _contact_ _with_ _,_ _damn_ _it_ _!_

She shimmies on her stomach, soldier crawling to the coffee table. She slaps a hand above her, searching for her laptop. Mashing keys violently, she pulls the device off the tabletop, feeling like she's stealing something that obviously belongs to her, because she is, and stumbles back to her bathroom in a paranoid craze, squeaking the entire way.

Eventually, her shaking fingers manage to find the Paranormal Pines forum as she perches on the edge of the bathtub. She checks the number that the user YucatanLvr had posted. Checks this with the number in her contact list. It's correct. Checks this with Sid and Mira Nygus' personal number.

It's one number off.

"Woah, woah, wait," she hisses aloud, demanding answers from her bath mat. "Okay, so, for argument's sake, let's just pretend that Black Star's family sells possessed trees for a living. Like that's not absurd. Sure. Whatever. Okay."

Mira had sounded awfully aware of Maka having a being of whatever type named 'Soul'.

...Also Soul has a brother, which is a neat idea but **not** **the** **point** **at** **all** **.**

Maka had originally called that number to get rid of the tree, but now it seems like the tree had been purposefully planted. And Black Star knows about it.

* * *

_BANG_ _BANG_ _BANG_ _!_

"Black Star! Open up!" she hollers. She doesn't exactly know what she's about to accuse him of, but the words 'conspiracy', 'haunted', and 'Nuts For Brains' rattle around in her mind.

No one answers. Where could they have gone? She realizes it's Christmas Eve, and that most normal people are busy right now, but she has a conspiracy to unravel, and, to be honest, Black Star is _far_ from normal.

Her phone rings in her ear and spits out a disconnected line message from Tsubaki's cell, and now Maka has to roll her eyes and impatiently wait through Black Star's stupid 'God isn't here right now, please leave prayers with my secretary after the beep' message.

"Black Star, Nygus called me and my tree is alive and I don't know what the hell is going on but I **know** **you** **'** **re** **in** **on** **it** and WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! You better call me back or I'm telling Tsubaki where you keep all your porn mags!"

Maka angrily snaps her phone shut and tromps back up the stairs to her own apartment. Should she call Mira back? Why had she been given a tree and yet hadn't been told there was an _other worldly_ _being_ living in it?

She confronts the Christmas tree looming in her living room. Her knees are shaking, but her anger and confusion keeps her voice strong. "Were you in on it, too?" God, she's talking to a tree, but it wouldn't be the first time, and this is honestly the least of her irritations. "Alright, you. I know you're there. Or I'm crazy, but you won't go away so I'll just say that I formally acknowledge your existence."

All she gets is silence, but she isn't sure what she was expecting in the first place. Though the red lights on the tree do appear to dim a little, as if intimidated.

"...L-look, just flash your lights or something. One for yes, two for no."

One. Two.

She's almost surprised that worked. Almost. Wait, what did she ask? "'No', you weren't in on it?"

One.

Maka firmly shoves her growing anxiety for communicating in friggen' Twinkle Light Morse Code with a tree far away in the quiet recesses of what's left of her sane mind, and tries to figure out what questions to ask.

"Right then. So we're victims here!" She gestures wildly with her hands. " **I** didn't want to be haunted, **you** didn't want-"

One. Two.

She blinks. "You ... _wanted_ to haunt someone?"

The lights on the tree dim for a few seconds before answering. One. Two. Three.

Maka groans, exasperated. "Three? What is that- 'sort-of'?"

One.

"You sort-of wanted to haunt someone."

One. Two. Three.

Her hand not still clutching her cell phone shoots to her messy hair and makes it even messier. "Urgh! Sort-of wanting to haunt someone sort-of? What does that even MEAN?"

One. Two.

How had her life come to this? She's getting frustrated with a pine tree. Keep it together! She's smart. She can figure this out. She can figure this out and then figure out who she's supposed to _murder_ _._

"You wanted to sort-of haunt someone."  
No.  
"You wanted to haunt someone, sort-of."  
Sort of.  
"You wanted to haunt someone... specifically?"  
Yes.

Maka blinks. The question comes out timidly. "You wanted to haunt m-me, specifically?"

The twinkle lights shut off completely for a beat before briefly reporting a faint, hesitant yes.

"Why?" she breathes. He can't answer this though, as it's not a yes or no question. It doesn't stop her from asking more. Her racing heart only pushes more of her confusion out of her lips.

"How do you even know me?"  
Silence.  
"I guess through Black Star, but why do you know Black Star?"  
Silence.  
"Why did you kiss me?"  
Silence.

"What am I supposed to do with you? What about my cat? People will think I'm nuts as it is, and I can't keep a Christmas tree around all year, that's just _weird_ _!"_ Great, now she's apparently already decided she's going to keep the tree instead of getting rid of it per her previous plan. "And why the hell is no one answering their phones when I actually have a problem?!"

Silence.

"Don't you hide from me, you Soul Eater! I'll... I'll-" Maka speed-walks to her kitchen counter and picks up an old, battered phonebook. "I'll turn you into pulp!"

As she glares angrily at the pine, demanding any kind of response, she sees a lanky shadow peel away from the tree, lurking on the wall adjacent to her fireplace. It's all reflex as she shrieks and hurls the phonebook at it, complimentary coupons flying from the pages.

The shadow dodges the book before it impacts the wall with a loud _thud_ _._ The Soul Eater seems to bristle in her direction, peeved with her violence, as the lights on the tree blink erratically.

Maka's face goes slack, and she wobbles her way to the couch, grasping an armrest to hold herself steady. Her eyes can't look away from the shadow that shifts warily from side to side on her wall. She makes an incomprehensible noise as a bit of itself peels away like an arm, a dark hand forming on the wall and hesitantly greeting her with one small wave.

One of her hands makes a faint attempt at waving back. And then her knees give out.

* * *

'Soul' dallies around in the open, sliding across her floor and furniture near her as if wanting to make sure she's okay, but not wanting to get close enough to get punched in the not-face. The whole apartment smells softly of cider while Maka sits on her couch, alternately staring at the tree spirit and her call-log in her cell phone.

The Soul Eater had wanted to haunt her. Specifically. She isn't sure what that really means, but she's pretty positive she hadn't won any popularity contests with Christmas paraphernalia recently. Mira Nygus and Black Star both had known about Soul prior to giving her the tree- does that mean Tsubaki had known too? It'd been her idea to give Maka a tree in the first place, but Maka's still unsure of her friend's role in all this.

She should just call Nygus. Figure out what's going on. Find out why _somebody_ thought she needed a supernatural companion for Christmas.

Clicking through her phone, Maka dials the Paranormal Pines-provided number, taking a sip from a warm mug of Ghost Cider while trying not to think too hard about where it came from. She glances back at the shadow, watching a dark hand inch across her fireplace and fiddle with her radio on the mantle. She feels an almost relieving sense of apathy for how clearly ridiculous the universe has become, numbly accepting the fact that her Christmas tree is trying to find a decent station.

The phone rings with a constant busy signal. Somehow, she's not surprised. She'll wait. She has all day. She ends the call and hits redial. She takes another sip of cider, which helps her fight off the weary feeling of just having fainted.

Just as she's wondering if trees get hungry, a call-waiting tone buzzes loudly in her ear. Confused, Maka pulls the phone away and reads the ID displayed. Blinks. Hits 'answer'.

"Patti?"  
" _Heyas_ _!_ _What_ _'_ _s_ _up_ _?"_

Maka watches as 'Soul' irritatedly (she thinks, anyway- it's hard to tell what kind of attitude a shadow is adopting) turns off her radio after having found nothing of interest.

Well, to hell with it. "So, if I told you I had a haunted Christmas tree, what would you say?"

Patti makes a pondering hum for a moment and replies, _"_ _Pics_ _or_ _it_ _didn_ _'_ _t_ _happen_ _."_

"Hang on a sec." Maka flips her phone to camera mode, snaps a picture of the shadow curiously tapping the faux wood at the bottom of her gas fireplace, and sends this to Patti via text message. "Sent."

She hears some loud button mashing, followed by, _"_ _Ooh_ _!_ _Are_ _you_ _gonna_ _call_ _Ghostbusters_ _or_ _Men_ _In_ _Black_ _?"_

Maka takes another sip and wonders if Soul Eater has laced her cider with hallucinogenics, but at this point it probably doesn't matter. Though, where would a tree _get_ hallucinogenics? And the cider? She sighs. Her head hurts.

"I thought the Men In Black were for aliens?"  
" _Maybe_ _your_ _tree_ _'_ _s_ _from_ _outer_ _space_ _!"_

Hell, anything could be true. Who is she to judge? "You seem pretty calm about this."

" _Oh_ _?_ _Been_ _there_ _,_ _done_ _that_ _._ _My_ _life_ _is_ _spooky_ _,_ _yanno_ _?"  
_ "Okay, Mulder."

" _No_ _,_ _really_ _!_ _Sis_ _had_ _an_ incident _,"_ is all Patti says before laughing with gusto. _"_ _Is_ _it_ _a_ _mean_ _ghost_ _?"_

Maka glances once more at the shadow, which promptly moves away as if trying to not appear to be eavesdropping. She glowers at it.

"Just... perverted."  
" _Oh_ _hoh_ _ **hoh**_ _ **!**_ _Merry_ _Christmas_ _in_ _your_ _pants_ _!"  
_ "Patti!"

Maka flushes, watching the shadow casting on a wall scratch his head bashfully while Patti says, _"_ _So_ _that_ _'_ _s_ _why_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _not_ _eagerly_ _callin_ _'_ _Ghostbusters_ _~"_

"T-that's not it at _all_ _._ "

" _Yeah_ _so_ _,_ _anyway_ _,_ _I_ _was_ _callin_ _'_ _to_ _see_ _if_ _you_ _were_ _doing_ _anything_ _tomorrow_ _morning_ _?"_ The sound of paper crinkling reaches Maka's blushing ear. _"_ _I_ _gotchu_ _something_ _,"_ she says, not giving away any indication that she cares she's seen proof of a ghost living in Maka's apartment. _"_ _I_ _'_ _ll_ _say_ _'_ _hi'_ _to_ _your_ _new_ _friend_ _."_

Upon further reflection, Maka is starting to like the idea of having witnesses to her situation. "As long as it's before noon- I'm going over to my dad's place for lunch."

" _That_ _'_ _s_ _cool_ _,_ _we_ _'_ _re_ _gonna_ _be_ _busy_ _for_ _lunch_ _too_ _,_ _so_ _._ _Anyway_ _,_ _I_ _gots_ _to_ _go_ _-_ _Sis_ _woke_ _up_ _and_ _she_ _'_ _s_ _ **grumpy**_ _ **.**_ _See_ _ya_ _tomorrow_ _?"_

* * *

She decides to make a pumpkin pie to bring to her father's tomorrow. While she gathers the ingredients for the crust, her movements set to the never-ending busy-line beep of Mira's number that she constantly dials and redials, Soul Eater's shadow stretches thin from the base of the tree, across her living room, and into the kitchen, hanging out on the door of her refrigerator. He forms into a silhouette of a person, curiously watching her move about the kitchen, more or less behaving himself.

Being haunted isn't so bad, maybe. ...Come to think of it, she isn't the only one who's been haunted!

She dials her godfather's number next before balancing the cell between cheek and shoulder, forming the pie crust dough with her hands.

" _Good_ _evening_ _,"_ Stein answers. That's the extent of his preamble. _"_ _Get_ _rid_ _of_ _your_ _extraneous_ _variables_ _?"_

She hears the familiar sound of a cash register. He must still be working on Christmas Eve. Maka tries not to let her voice go too sour at the memory of locking herself out of her apartment even after Stein's precautions.

"Y-yeah. I did. Thanks again."  
" _You_ _'_ _re_ _welcome_ _."  
_ "I was calling to, um, ask you about when you were haunted?"

Receipts being printed and crackling plastic bags answer her for a moment, along with some distant murmuring. _"_ _Ah_ _,_ _Maddy_ _,_ _one_ _of_ _those_ _light_ _bulbs_ _needs_ _replacing_ _-_ _ **ARUUGH**_ _ **-**_ _Thank_ _you_ _._ _Yes_ _,_ _actually_ _,_ _during_ _that_ _time_ _was_ _when_ _I_ _met_ _your_ _mother_ _."_

"What? Really? When was that?" she questions as she digs out a rolling pin from a cluttered drawer.

"In college. Fifty-seven thirty-three," he says to someone else. The register chimes again. _"_ _I_ _was_ _being_ _haunted_ _by_ _the_ _spirit_ _._ _You_ _remember_ _,_ _right_ _?_ _Maddy_ _."_ A pause, and a faint, child-like " _Unfortunately_ _,"_ reaches Maka's ear.

Something about this whole exchange stirs a wave of Deja Vu through her, but Maka can't pinpoint the cause. She glances over her shoulder at her tree spirit, who nosily looks under the photographs hanging by magnets on her fridge.

"What kind of spirit was it?"

The register chimes. _"_ _I_ _never_ _found_ _out_ _._ _I_ _was_ _about_ _to_ _..._ _remove_ _some_ _variables_ _when_ _your_ _mother_ _kidnapped_ _him_ _in_ _the_ _middle_ _of_ _my_ _experiment_ _,"_ Stein explains, sounding the faintest bit disappointed.

Maka scrunches her nose with confusion, trying to transfer her pie crust into a dish. The phone slips a little on her shoulder, and she squishes it closer to her face. "Wait, how did Mama steal a ghost?"

" _Well_ _he_ _was_ _living_ _in_ _a_ _tree_ _,_ _you_ _see_ _."_

Maka turns to stone, staring at her pie crust, keenly aware of the tree in her living room. Behind her, photos on her fridge quietly flutter. "A-a tree spirit? You mean like a Christmas tree?"

Stein makes a pleased noise. _"Yes, exactly. Unfortunately, the hauntings ceased after that. There was apparently a fire, and the tree burned to ash. A shame. I need to help a customer, so I must go. Merry Christmas."_

She tries to ask him to wait, to explain everything again, but her godfather has already hung up. Maka shuts her phone, smearing floury fingerprints on the cover. She mixes various spices with some pumpkin purees, trying to stir away her intense urge to rip all the potentially hazardous Christmas lights off her tree.

Why had Mama kidnapped a _tree_ _?_ Did... did she set it on fire?! Surely not on purpose. Maybe.

Maka shakes her head- this is the strangest reason she's ever had for wanting to have some kind of contact with her mother. Still, even if she could talk to her, what on earth would she say? _'_ _Hey_ _Mom_ _,_ _it_ _'_ _s_ _been_ _awhile_ _,_ _remember_ _that_ _time_ _you_ _hijacked_ _a_ _tree_ _from_ _Stein_ _before_ _I_ _was_ _born_ _?'_

She groans to the pie filling, frustrated.

Seriously, what are the chances of her having known not one, but two people her entire life who've had an encounter with a ghost tree? After all the 'coincidences' she's uncovered today, she wouldn't be surprised if the poor burned tree had come from Sid and Mira's freaky tree farm!

Her own spirit catches her attention, leaving the fridge and draping over the edge of the counter. One shadowy hand prods at leftover crust dough, leaving the faintest impression.

"Did you know my mama?" she asks suddenly, grasping for straws, or maybe extraneous variables. The shadow seems to regard her a moment, then morphs into the shape of a shark, smiling with big, serrated teeth. It even has the outline of a Santa hat.

Maka chokes on a laugh. "Yeah. From the postcards." Apparently he'd been reading the ones she'd been trying to keep perched in his tree.

Soul Eater returns to his slouchy, humanesque silhouette and shakes his head, shrugging.

She feels a little crestfallen, but she's used to that around this time of year, and carefully segregates that taste in the back of her mouth away from the more important things at hand. Pours the filling into the pie shell. Washes her hands. Calls the forum number again. Still busy. Calls Tsubaki. Still disconnected. Calls Black Star. Straight to voicemail.

"Damn it, Nuts for Brains!" she barks to his mailbox message before she hangs up. Angrily (but carefully!), Maka places the pie in the oven, and violently jabs her fingers into the oven's timer buttons.

This is the moment Soul Eater apparently decides he's bored and promptly knocks over a half-empty bag of flour all over the kitchen countertops and floor.

Maka whirls on the shadow, hissing. "You have _got_ to be kidding me!" She wonders if she can beat a ghost to death with her bare hands. "Here I am, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with you, worrying that I'm gonna catch you on _freakin_ _'_ fire and accidentally **fry** **you** **,** and you just-"

Soul swipes a dusting of flour off the counter, making an ivory cloud appear in the air and collide with her face.

" **I** **am** **going** **to** **ream** **you** **into** **printer** **paper** **,** **you** **hear** **me** **?!"**

* * *

Approximately an hour later, the kitchen has mostly finished dreaming of a white Christmas. Maka, hair caked, clothes powdered, mouth slimy with the taste of raw flour, sweeps the last flour pile into a dustpan held in place by a shadowy puddle. She still thinks she's going to end up finding dust in every nook of her kitchen for the next three years.

She's never going to get her security deposit back.

"Why me, of all people?" she asks suddenly, taking the dustpan from the floor and dumping it in the waste bin. It wasn't like she didn't feel a little more loosened up after horsing around having a childish flour war, and she wasn't entirely ruing the fact that she'd been stuck with a mischievous tree spirit for Christmas- she was genuinely curious. "Was Black Star just like, 'hey, I know this scrawny chick that needs pranking like hardcore'? If so, that's... not cool." She turns her head to the side and tries to blow the taste of flour out of her mouth.

The blob of shadow on the floor shifts around a little before darting to the entrance of the kitchen, stretching up to reach the overhead lights.

One. Two.

Maka pouts, out of ideas and too emotionally exhausted to give the situation any serious consideration. She wipes flour off her forehead and muses aloud, "There's not even anything special about me. Hell, everyone calls me The Grinch."

The lights go out. Maka huffs.

The only things giving off light in her apartment are the internal light in the oven, highlighting a mostly-done pie, and the red glow from the Christmas tree in the living room. "This better be like a _really_ _,_ _really_ emphatic 'yes' to my being a Grinch," she warns aloud, but the lights don't turn back on.

Maka glances around, but the majority of the kitchen is now a shadow, and the tree spirit could be hiding anywhere. She's tired, a little hungry, and feels like the world's largest dinner biscuit, so she flippantly tosses the broom to lean against a counter somewhere and shuffles around to find the light switch. But she bumps into something.

Or someone, rather.

And suddenly she realizes this is one of _those_ encounters- where the tree spirit is less of a prankster, and more of a...

"Pervert," she growls, feeling a warm hand blocking hers from the light switch. Heat grows across her back and she really wants to know why she has so much unnatural chemistry with a _tree_ _,_ damn it. "Touch my boob and I'll personally destroy your pinecones."

In reply, one hand flows up her arm while the other gently moves her away from the light switch. Soul Eater touches her shoulders, maybe reassuringly, but she tenses anyway. Skin flushing, Maka makes ready to give a swift kick to the twig and berries.

But then, in her left ear, she hears something soft and quiet; more like a tickle of a feeling than an actual sound. A faint creaking of branches, maybe, or a rustling of pine needles.

He's talking to her.

She freezes in place, now out of intense interest than worrisome anticipation of boob-gropings. She remembers, sort-of (it would be more accurate to say she just _knows_ ), that the spirit has talked to her in her sleep, but right now she hears no words.

This bothers her. She wants to hear it- him, whatever- and she desires more than a murky memory of his voice to work with. "I don't..." She turns her head slightly, maybe to hear better, maybe to look at him pressed so closely behind her, though she knows there isn't much of anything to see. "I don't understand," she murmurs.

The weight on her right shoulder disappears a moment and lightly settles over her eyes, instead. She startles, eyes blinking rapidly, and her lashes continually brush across nothing. A hazy sheen filters the dim view of her kitchen, lit by her oven's yellowed, internal light.

Soul Eater whispers treetops and boughs, and Maka breathes in soothing mulling spices that heat her from the inside out. She leans just the slightest bit into him. She closes her eyes. Calms herself. Lets a ghost soothe her. Basks in warmth and hears his voice approach as if from far away, from the edge of sleep on a snowing winter night.

It's a lot less poetic when she deciphers the words.

"...-kept yakkin' for like, five _years_ about his girlfriend's friend- like how grumpy and antisocial she is, and how she hates Christmas and is violent as all hell-"

Maka's mouth purses into a displeased line. Her irritation makes her tense and his voice fades away, so she attempts to swallow her pride a little and focus on staying relaxed, or on at least not punching anyone. Soul Eater's voice comes back to her.

"...said he thought she can listen to trees. And she sounded pretty cool. Wanted to see for myself. But he wouldn't ever tell me her name 'cuz he's a friggen' _jackass_ , like I'm so happy you're not into him- that is the biggest relief, seriously-"

Maka flushes and tries not to choke.

"-and then I got sold- well, Nygus says it's an 'adoption' but what the hell ever- and Nuts for Brains wouldn't tell me where he was takin' me, and then just dumps me here! But... then you heard me. While you were sleeping."

She can almost feel a smile curving against her ear. "And then I knew it was you. He brought me to you."

Her face heats enough to roast chestnuts. She doesn't really get why Black Star had talked about her so much to a... a _tree_ _ghost_ , or how he'd known she could even hear one talk to her at all, but she's not blind to this Soul Eater guy having a weird tree crush on her.

"Listening?"

Maka swallows nervously and nods.

"Can I stay? With you. I... don't wanna leave."

For stupid, inappropriate reasons, blurry memories of a goodbye kiss (or two?) before she had woken up this morning (actually, noon) flash through her, making her fingers tingle like static. Her lips press together. Her chest thunders while the hand over her eyes lifts away to straighten her flour-covered bangs.

She'd already decided it awhile ago, but it's good to say it aloud, even if it's a nervous whisper with her eyes still closed. "I want you to stay."

_BUZZ_ _!_

Maka jumps and squeaks, the warm body pressing against her back suddenly vanishing. She scrambles to the oven to turn off the timer. Takes a breath to steady her nerves. Takes the pumpkin pie out and sets it on the stove to cool. Chants 'stupid, stupid, stupid' in her head.

The lights turn back on, but she doesn't look for him, feeling embarrassed and shy. She says to the pie, "I'm gonna shower." After a breath, she adds, "Peek and you're mulched," just for safe measure. She needs to get away for just a bit, and hopefully fade the creepy desire to make out with a tree.

* * *

She sips soup on her couch, wet hair air-drying, and ends up playing a weird version of charades to learn more about him.

He's over thirty. At her aghast look, he'd haltingly relayed to her that in tree years, it's different. He makes a silhouette of Black Star, complete with pointy hair, for a rough estimate of his 'human' age.

His favorite color is orange.

His favorite smell is orange.

Actually, he just likes oranges a lot in general. He wishes he could eat one.

He wants to fly. He's envious of birds. The closest he's gotten to flight was being strapped to the roof of Black Star's car, and that had been pretty awesome, for her information.

His dislikes are as such, and in this order: termites, squirrels, and ...tree skirts.

"Aw, but it was a gift from Tsubaki," Maka laughs. "You have to wear it until Christmas, at least. That's like in an hour."

Soul's shadow slouches even further down the wall. The lights on the tree dim as if sulking. Maka snorts. "Oh, that reminds me. I think that one show should be on the radio right about now."

The red lights on the tree give an excited, spasmodic series of flashes, and Soul Eater darts to the fireplace mantle, fiddling with the radio. Maka smiles, not grasping why the spirit is so enamored with the Quality Hour show, but finding his enthusiasm kind of endearing.

...Unless he was in love with the female DJ who Maka had met last night at Tsubaki's party. The thought makes her mood sour. She has firm beliefs about men who play around, ghosts included. She's just about to inform him Elizabeth Thompson is taken, but the male voice from last night's show is the one speaking instead of Patti's sister.

" _..._ _just_ _tuning_ _in_ _,_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _listening_ _to_ _the_ _Quality_ _Hour_ _._ _We_ _'_ _ve_ _got_ _a_ _great_ _Oscar_ _Peterson_ _cover_ _of_ _Sinatra_ _that_ _I_ _wanna_ _dedicate_ _to_ _my_ _kid_ _brother_ _._ _Hope_ _you_ _'_ _re_ _having_ _a_ _cool_ _Christmas_ _,_ _bro_ _."_

A swinging piano tune rings out that Maka vaguely recognizes. She stifles a giggle when Soul's lights begin to faintly pulse with the beat, seemingly without his knowledge. She decides that maybe the spirit just really likes this style of music, as opposed to a certain female DJ (who must not be working tonight).

Standing and stretching, Maka leaves Soul Eater to his own devices and takes her empty soup bowl to the kitchen to clean. After rinsing and setting the bowl in a drying rack, she notices her forgotten phone on the counter. She hasn't tried to call anyone in over an hour, and she feels remarkably calm about it.

To be frank with herself, she's starting to enjoy the idea of someone being here when she wakes up on Christmas morning. It's probably selfish of her, but Soul wants to stay and she doesn't want him to leave, so it's not like he's in her apartment against either person/entity's will, right?

She finishes cleaning up the pots and pans she'd used to cook both the soup and her pie. She should probably go to bed, but she's not tired at all after having slept in all morning, and she kind of wants to stay in her tree's company. Being around him is relaxing. Well, if she ignores how easily he can heat her blood, sometimes.

When she returns to the living room, she finds another steaming cup of cider on the coffee table. She's really starting to appreciate this fortuitous situation. She grabs the drink, along with laptop, and sits on the floor near the lower boughs of the tree, next to a long-necked, still-wrapped gift. Her lips curl into a small smile, content.

This is the feeling she remembers from childhood. Soothing music plays, the smell of cider and pine floats around her, and her apartment gives off that long-missed feeling of 'home'. Maka idly surfs the internet awhile, sipping from her mug, and after several classic songs and jazz renditions, she feels a little weary. Maka yawns and stretches, arms reaching far to the sides.

Blinking sleepily, she watches as her laptop, possessed, opens up a blank wordpad document over her internet browser. The laptop greets her, typing up _'hey'_.

Squinting, she spies the air shimmering near her, Soul's shadow appearing to her left. "Hi?" she says aloud.

It's intriguing to see her keys being pressed without the aid of her hands. He types slowly, but still pretty well for a ghost. Or a tree. Whatever.

" _can_ _i_ _kiss_ _you_ _"_

She's already sputtering the moment she sees the first 's' in 'kiss' on the screen. "W-what?! No!" Her cheeks tint red from a lot more than the Christmas lights.

" _:("_

Maka scoffs, heart gaining speed in her chest. "...Don't frownie face at me."

" _:((("_

Her hands wrap around her cider as if seeking protection from her growing excitement. "You already kissed me today, anyway," she mutters. Despite her contrary answers, her eyes flit back to the blinking marquee in the document, curious of his reply.

The emoticons disappear. _"..._ _that_ _doesnt_ _count_ _"_

"Yes it does!" she blurts, annoyed.

" _that_ _was_ _a_ _goodbye_ _kiss_ _!"_ It takes him a moment to find the exclamation point for that one. _"_ _this_ _one_ _will_ _be_ _better_ _"_

Toes wiggling into the carpet, Maka tries to sound unimpressed. "And why's that?"

After a moment, he types, _"_ _look_ _up_ _"_

Gazing at the ceiling, Maka squints in the dim light and finds a bushy blob of shadow on the ceiling, a long, dark line running across the ceiling and down a wall, connecting it to Soul sitting next to her. She raises an eyebrow at the laptop. "What the heck is that supposed to be," she teases.

" _MISTLETOE duh D:"  
_ "That looks _nothing_ like mistletoe, sorry."

Soul Eater brings up multiple image searches of mistletoe in retaliation, which forces her to give up and giggle. "Okay, okay!" She laughs, feeling equal parts bashful and kind of ridiculous for flirting with a tree. She worries if there's such a thing as evergreen-sexual. "You can kiss me. ...But just **once** , understand?"

The screen of her laptop shuts and the computer slides away, gliding across the carpet towards the couch. The mug of cider is gently taken from her hands and casually floats away to the coffee table like it's completely normal. He must be planning a heck of a kiss, she muses, to be clearing the stage. Maka shivers, hands clutching at her knees, anticipating the warmth of his shadow, and shivers even more when she finds it closing in around her.

An instrumental version of 'O Tannenbaum' begins, and, eyes shut, she can almost picture the person whose hand caresses the side of her neck, fingers toying in her chilled, still-damp hair. And, like the night before, she has a feeling this kiss will be a lot more interesting than a casual peck under some mistletoe, supernatural or otherwise.

His mouth presses into her lips, nudging her gently. A searing tongue teases into her mouth and she greets it with her own. A few wet exchanges like this and Soul breaks away, kissing the edge of her lips and nuzzling across her cheek.

This is actually happening. She hasn't been drinking alcohol, and she's not asleep in her bed. This isn't a dream or a hallucination. She quietly gasps at a nibble on her neck, and then his body is pressing against hers, tilting her back.

She lets Soul Eater kiss her a lot more than just once.

Sprawled under him, she moans as his lips brand her jawline before finding her mouth again. He hovers over her, heat radiating across her body, but she wants him closer. Maka cautiously reaches up, hooking her arms around where she thinks his neck should be, and tugs. Soul's body mashes against hers, the shadow settling between her legs and slanting his lips more heatedly against her own. A hand traces down her side, clutching at her hip, drawing her to him.

She's panting and completely riled as he kisses across her collar bones. Faintly, she hears that male DJ speaking through the airwaves.

" _That concludes the Quality Hour. Merry Christmas from us here at K-DWMA, and thanks for stickin' with us. It's a few seconds from midnight, so you still got time to make a last-minute wish."_

Her body feels caressed by fire. Soul is back at her lips, tasting her in what she can only describe as 'thoroughly'. He'd claimed he didn't really have one, but her hands find what should be his face, pressing so close to hers, and she just wants to picture him clearly in her mind, wants to see what forms these cheekbones and this wild mop of what surely must be hair, and these eyes-

Soul slowly stops kissing her, to let her carefully feel where his eyes should be. Before she can fully process it, she makes a wish, even if she can't form the words. Maka hears him whispering things to her that she can't understand again, and she wants, so suddenly, so violently, to see his face!

_POP_ _!_

The world stops. Or she thinks it does, initially, but it's actually the fuse supplying electricity to her living room popping, causing the radio to fall silent and the tree to go dark.

"What-" she starts to say, confused as to why a mere radio and string of twinkle lights had blown a breaker, but she's interrupted by Soul Eater abruptly pulling away from her and dragging her to her feet. Maka squeaks, still trying to adjust to the dark and now forced to stand. She doesn't have time to ask what the problem is, because the Christmas lights on the tree are suddenly glowing.

The don't glow in that being-fed-by-electricity way, though. More like they burn as tiny suns, glowing brighter and a lot hotter than they should, in that can-only-be-caused-by-the-paranormal way. She watches the lights shine so brightly that she thinks she can hear the little glass bulbs complain with pressure, and just as they begin to explode, two hands land on her shoulders and shove her away.

The Christmas tree catches fire.

"No... Nonono! NO. NO FIRES!" Maka shouts, heart in her throat, memories flashing with the image of Tsubaki's tree from five years ago, and with Stein's voice repeating in a gut-sinking loop of _'the tree burned to ash'_.

_The tree burned to ash._

_The tree burned to ash._

She twists and runs the most direct route to the kitchen, which involves colliding into the corner of the coffee table and hurdling over the arm of her couch. She slides across linoleum and fumbles for the large pitcher she's been using to keep Soul's tree watered, which sits on the kitchen counter. The fact that she finds it fairly easily makes her terrifyingly grateful and panicked, because it's the fire in her living room that is giving off enough light to find it in the first place, and it is currently burning the tree _to ash._

There isn't enough water pressure. The water isn't coming out of the tap fast enough. She watches the pitcher slowly fill and makes horrified glances to the tree that has become a veritable firestorm in under thirty seconds.

Come on! She knows in the logical part of her mind that one half-gallon of tap water is not going to begin to put out an inferno, but she has to try, damn it! Pitcher mostly full because she simply can't wait on the tap any longer, she darts out of the kitchen, sloshing water on every possible thing not on fire en route to Soul Eater.

Already the flames are dying down, but she knows it's because the fire has run out of fuel to burn. The apartment grows darker as every needle of the pie tree burns to a crisp. The water she uses to douse the blackened branches only sizzles and evaporates into pathetic steam. As it clears, her apartment is cloaked in shadows and pitch.

It feels hard to breathe. The temperature of the air roasts her in her clothes. "Soul?" she calls out into the silence. Her voice stings with worry. "Soul Eater, come out!"

Maka drops the empty pitcher and clumsily rushes to the front door, which is the nearest thing to the fuse box that she can confidently navigate to in the dark. She can't see a damned thing once she opens the thin metal door to the box- she needs a flashlight or a candle or anything useful at this point would be great, thanks. She runs her hands over the fuses, searching for the one that should seem out of place. It takes her three anxious, rushed tries to find it, and she viciously flings it back into place.

The radio kicks back on, some other night-oil-burning show on the air, but she doesn't care at all what the DJ might be saying. Maka slaps her hands on a wall and follows it to the lightswitch she knows is there, promptly blinding herself with the ceiling lights.

Eyes watering, she's startled to find no evidence of a fire having taken place in her apartment at all, apart from a charred thing that used to be a tree trunk. The ceiling has no scorch marks. There's no lingering smoke, no melted carpet, no burned furniture.

Even Tsubaki's tree skirt is still in one piece.

She doesn't understand how any of this is possible, but she also doesn't _care_. "Soul," she calls out again, voice wavering.

How is it that any of this had happened at all?! One minute she's _making_ _out_ with a tree ghost, and the next the Christmas tree spontaneously combusts. Numbly, Maka shuffles over to what's left of the tree, its branches already disintegrating into a fine ash to the floor. She swallows a lump in her throat.

" _Of_ _course_ _they_ _can_ _die_ _!_ _What_ _affects_ _the_ _tree_ _affects_ _them_ _as_ _well_ _."_

No! She hadn't meant to kill anyone! She'd wanted him to stay, she'd wanted... not this! Tears begin to well up in her eyes, slowly bubbling over. She tries his name one more time but it doesn't come out right- just a whine with a question mark mashed on the end of it- and gets no response.

Trees are fire hazards. She'd known this from the start. Her hand reaches out to touch a gnarled, charcoal branch, and as it dissolves into dust under her fingers, she thinks her wish had been too greedy. Even the little pinecones are burned chunks that break apart at the slightest shift in the air. Soon, the entire tree crumbles into a pile of ashes inside the center of the duct-taped tree stand.

Her hand claps over her mouth and she closes her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says into her hand. When she opens her eyes, Soul is still gone. Despairing and searching for any sign of him, she sees a mostly unburned piece of paper leaning up against an equally unburned, giftwrapped giraffe. Her vision glistens as she picks up the paper.

It's the postcard with the Santa shark on it- the only postcard that Soul Eater would keep in his tree. The edges are slightly browned and crispy, but it had otherwise been saved, along with everything else in her apartment. Fighting to keep her face from scrunching up with tears, she flips the postcard over to read the back and find out why he'd liked this one so much.

It's addressed to 'My Lovely Daughter'. She's expecting the usual 'Hope to see you soon', or 'I'll try to visit for Christmas', but she doesn't remember this one.

It reads:

" _Florida_ _has_ _great_ _weather_ _this_ _time_ _of_ _year_ _,_ _but_ _it_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _get_ _the_ _snow_ _like_ _it_ _does_ _out_ _there_ _._

_I_ _'_ _m_ _sorry_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _never_ _around_ _,_ _honey_ _,_ _but_ _just_ _know_ _that_ _I_ _am_ _proud_ _of_ _you_ _and_ _how_ _strong_ _you_ _are_ _,_ _and_ _trust_ _me_ _that_ _it_ _is_ _so_ _very_ _easy_ _to_ _love_ _you_ _._ _Your_ _friends_ _will_ _always_ _be_ _there_ _for_ _you_ _when_ _I_ _can_ _not_ _,_ _and_ _your_ _father_ _cherishes_ _you_ _more_ _than_ _anything_ _in_ _the_ _world_ _._ _Have_ _courage_ _,_ _darling_ _._

_Always_ _with_ _love_ _,  
_ _Mama_ _."_

She's trying to have courage. Stiff upper-lip and all that. But Mama isn't even close to being right. Why would anyone want to be at her side? What kind of person is she, to only call when things go wrong, to only speak to her father when he came to her first, to somehow manage to kill a Christmas tree spirit on _Christmas_ _morning_ _?!_

Looking up from the postcard, tears still crawl down her face. She knows exactly what she is.

"I'm a Grinch," she tells the empty apartment, forlorn.

And then, the tree skirt twitches.

Her first thought is 'squirrel', and that Soul had kept one the whole time even though he'd claimed his intense hatred for them not two hours ago, and he'd spared its life somehow in the fire as well.

Her second thought is even more absurd, but she refuses to think any more about it because she's had enough false hopes on Christmas morning to last ten lifetimes.

Sniffling, she reaches forward to pull back the hole in the center of the tree skirt to see what's crawling around underneath, determined to save whatever Soul might've left behind, but she yanks her hand back in surprise, because the squirming lump gets _bigger._

Bigger. Much bigger.

Maka stumbles backwards, gasping as the lump grows taller and wider, lifting the tree skirt as it climbs inches in seconds. She clutches the postcard to her chest and stares, transfixed, as the lump under the argyle tree skirt grows gangly, tanned legs, skin the color of new, unburned pinecones.

From the center of the tree skirt, a shock of the fluffy, white garland peeks out the top of the tree skirt. Except hadn't the garland burned with the tree? From the ashes, a person grows and grows, like a firebird of a weed, and as Maka feels her eyes burn from being unable to blink and miss a single second, a head pops out of the middle of the tree skirt.

His eyes are red, like little burning suns or paranormal Christmas lights. He shakes his head violently, ashes flying from his crazy, snowy hair. He blinks. Sees her. Grins.

He has shark teeth.

Maka's knees buckle and she heavily plops on the floor, her mouth making the epitome of distraught and stupefied sounds in one long "Aaaaaaaa _aaaaaaa_."

She recognizes his voice as he flings out his arms from underneath his sweatery, argyle poncho and says, "Woah, wait! No fainting!"

This action sets off another three- the first being his losing balance and tripping because one of his feet is caught in the tree stand, the second being the moment Soul Eater accidentally flashes Maka Albarn as his arms pinwheel frantically to keep from falling, and the third being Maka faintly noting that the carpet matches the curtains as he collides into her on the floor, his face and her living room's ceiling spinning away on radio waves as she passes out for the second time.


	12. and A Soul Eater In A Pine Tree

When she comes back to reality- or whatever it is that's presently posing as reality- her head is resting on a red and black argyle lap, and the person her tree spirit has evidently sprouted into looks down at her, pensive.

"You seem to do that a lot," he mumbles, somewhat accusatory.

She doesn't even scream. Her face is a blank slate as her hand automatically shoots straight up and her palm bashes him in the middle of his upside-down face. Soul Eater reels backward, his knees helping her sit up and conveniently allowing her to scramble away.

"Son of a **beech** , what was that for?!" he exclaims, gingerly holding his face in his hands.

Meanwhile, Maka crawls across the floor, acquiring her trusty laptop. She wobbles to her feet and wields the computer between her white-knuckled hands. " **O-KAY,** that's it! First you're a tree, then you're a ghost thing, then you're a friggen'... cider _vending machine_ , then you're on fire, THEN YOU'RE DEAD-"

Still sprawled on the floor, Soul hurriedly sits up and brings his hands from his face. He interrupts her tirade by earnestly saying, "But I'm not dead." He blinks curiously after this statement, and then looks down at his palms in amazement. The side of his mouth quirks in a lopsided smile. He wiggles his fingers. "...Sweet!"

There's a man wearing nothing but a dizzying tree skirt sitting in the middle of her living room floor, laughing happily at the discovery of his elbows. Maka has no idea whatsoever what social protocol demands in this situation.

She wheezes. "I don't... under _stand_ _._ "

His smile broadens as he looks back at her. "It's Christmas. You kept me til midnight."

Something about this pokes the back of her mind, bringing up a forum post she'd read in Tsubaki's apartment:

_"_ _I_ _'_ _m_ _sure_ _we_ _all_ _know_ _what_ _happened_ _at_ _midnight_ _."_

Her arms slowly fall with the laptop still clutched between her hands. "And?"

"Well." Soul holds out his arms in display. "Ta-daaa."

Maka brings her laptop to her face so quickly she bonks herself in the forehead with it. ( _"..._ _all I can say is have clothes ready, or face a lot of embarrassment..."_ ) "Y-YOU. DON'T HAVE PANTS."

"Oh, yeah," she hears him say. "My bad, forgot humans're weird."

Cautiously peeking around her laptop, she anxiously asks, "So just bursting into flames for no apparent reason and then growing into a person is... normal?"

He yanks a chunk of his hair to the front of his face and tries to peer at it. "Yeah pretty much. For us, anyway."

"Us."  
"Us. You know, like me. And Nuts for Brains."

Maka's mouth opens and shuts. She shuffles to the coffee table, places her laptop down, and stiffly sits on her couch.

She gives herself a mental pep talk. She's made it this long without having a panic attack or mental and/or emotional breakdown; she can make it just a little further. It's time to regroup. Nuts for Br- _Black Star,_ rather, is apparently a tree. Or was. Or what the hell does she know, maybe everyone she knows used to be a tree. Maybe she's the only one on this planet that had actually grown from a human fetus.

She doesn't know why she's trying so hard to disprove Soul's statement. This stubborn grip she has on 'normal reality' is becoming a burden. Everything adds up: Black Star's outrageously blue hair, the color of Tsubaki's decorations for her tree that had burned five years prior, the fact that Tsubaki had met Black Star on Christmas day, and, "He's known you since you were a sapling," she says thinly.

"'Fraid so," Soul confirms. Still trying to figure out the mechanics behind not being a stationary tree, he gracelessly stands and walks to the couch. "...If I sit next to you, are you gonna hit me again?"

Maka looks up from the hole she'd been trying to burn into the coffee table with her blank stare. Shifts her eyes to his strange ones. "Maybe," she admits.

He grimaces, and she thinks he looks slightly like an emoticon. He slowly perches in front of her, on the edge of the coffee table. He peers curiously at her.

"Are you gonna faint again?"

"I don't think so..." After a long moment of awkward silence, she can't stop her hand from reaching out and touching his cheek with a light pat. He cringes at first, expecting a punch of some kind, but she only brings up her other hand to touch the opposite side of his face.

Her fingers mold the flesh of his cheeks. She flushes a little, recalling this shape. "It's really you, isn't it," she murmurs.

He grins between her hands, eyes warming. "You're changing color," he says, smug and blunt. It makes her blushing worse. His fingers lightly land just above her knees. "So, seein' as I'm human n'stuff," he rumbles teasingly, "what say you and me get back to making o-UGPH?"

Her face steams as she plants both hands firmly over his stupid mouth. "W-we have other things to be worrying about right now."

Soul complains behind her hands, which she translates into a peeved, "Like what?!"

"Like **finding** **you** **some** **pants** **,** for one. ...And figuring out what the hell planet I landed on." She chokes on nothing when he cheekily kisses the palm of her hand. "Would you quit?!"

* * *

Nothing fits him. Her biggest shirts are still too narrow in the shoulders and far too short at the waist. She's secretly kind of glad he can't fit in any of her pants, but only for personal, self-image reasons which have nothing to do with Soul being perpetually naked (though she will admit to having made a few (multiple) involuntary glances at his rear, and notes that it is very satisfactory).

"Black Star still isn't answering, but I'm gonna go downstairs to see if anyone's home. Maybe I can bum some old clothes from him. Stay. HERE. Don't go anywhere, don't set anything on fire, and-"

"'Stay out of the kitchen', yeah, I got it," he finishes with a smirk that indicates that the kitchen is probably the first thing he'll raid. He slouches a little off to the side from his tree stand. He looks absurd, but confident. Maka is loathe to leave him alone for even half a minute, but naked people in tree skirts should not be waltzing around the apartment building. "I won't go anywhere. Trees are good at stayin' in one place."

She sighs, resigned, and turns to the front door. There's a tug on the sleeve of her shirt that startles her.

"Hey, um, Twiggy?"

Maka looks over her shoulder and mildly glowers. "Not you, too," she complains. "I have a name, you know."

The chagrined look on his face throws her for a loop. "I, uh, really don't. Actually."

She turns back to him again and notes that he doesn't let go of her sleeve. "'Don't' what?"

"Know."

"My _name_ _?!"_ she blurts, aghast. How much more absurd can he get? He's wanted to meet her for how long? And he's kissed her, even! _A_ _LOT_ _!_

She must have changed colors again, because he nervously reacts to her face. "Look, okay, Black Star just is a giant knothole and what is it with your freakin' friends?! Star calls you 'Twiggy' and 'Grinchface' and your _mom_ only writes crap like 'My DARLING daughter' and don't even get me started on all the ridiculous pet names your old man has for you and just... _why_ _in_ _the_ _hell_ _doesn_ _'_ _t_ _anyone_ _call_ _you_ _by_ _your_ _name_ _?"_ he demands in one long breath, looking pained. "It's driving me crazy! It's like a giant cosmic joke or something! I just want-"

This is when he realizes he's ranting and all at once tries to regain his roguish demeanor, though it mostly gives the impression of a surly cat. "I just wanna know it." He huffs.

Maka bites back an amused smile. "Why didn't you just ask?"

It's his turn to flush as he studiously glares at her sleeve in his grasp. "...Wanted to figure it out myself," he mutters, and she grins widely at these turned tables.

_He_ _'_ _s_ _shy_ _._

Well, except in the groping department.

"Maka," she chirps to him. And she can't get over the open look on the face of someone who hasn't been human for more than half an hour, who looks so genuinely fascinated at twelve-something in the morning. Soul looks at her, from her face to her toes and back again, as if deliberately associating all of her to her two provided syllables.

"Ma-ka?" he tests. The corners of his lips perk up.

Oh no. The way he says it- the kind smile that wraps around the vowels, that curious tilt of head- makes her face burn.

"Urgh come on, let's go see if Nuts for Brains has some clothes," and, plagued by a change of heart, she takes his hand from her sleeve and drags him by it to the front door.

Peeking her head out into the hallway outside her door, she checks for any possible witnesses lurking in the stairwell. Luckily, it's still painfully early on Christmas morning, so most normal people (or trees, she can't claim to tell the difference anymore) are still asleep. Behind her, Soul Eater waggles his fingers in hers while trying out her name in different tones of voice like an actor going through his lines.

"Maka? Mmmakaaa, _Maka_ _._ MaKA! **Magaah** **-** "

"Would you SHUTUP," she hisses at him. "We're trying to be inconspicuous, here."

He clamps his mouth shut, but it doesn't stop his obvious glee or the snort. Maka resolutely leads him to the stairs, feeling agitated and bashful over his calling her name repeatedly. She can't handle such a high concentration at once.

"Um, Maka?" he says again behind her, and she accidentally yanks on his hand in her frazzled state.

" **What** **."**

To her confusion, Soul balks at her pulling. "I, waita sec, I don't-" His bare feet slide at the top of the stairwell.

Maka observes his wary face and the way he eyeballs the stairs. "Do... do you need help?" she hesitantly asks.

Soul's toes shift as he contemplates the long flight. "Just lemme, uh, think about this a sec," he mutters, deliberately grabbing a railing with his free hand and adopting a look of concentration.

She tries to be encouraging, taking the first step as example. "It's like a little fall, it's easy." Okay, maybe that hadn't been the wisest choice of words. Judging by the expression on his face, she supposes the idea of falling is even more worrisome for a tree than it is for a person. Still, between her steadying hand and the guardrail, he manages to get the hang of coordinating his long legs.

Once they're on the first floor, he remarks, as if the past minute and a half hadn't transpired at all, "This whole place is like, covered in mistletoe, did you know?"

Maka abruptly releases his hand and stalks away towards Tsubaki's apartment, demanding her blood to stay the hell away from her face. She realizes her mistake when she's about to knock on Tsubaki's door and hears Soul say, from a worrisome distance, "Hey- snow!" She whips her head to the front door of the apartment building, watching in horror as the little decorative sleigh bells hanging off the handle jingle as the door shuts behind a very still-mostly-naked Soul Eater.

" _Stop_ ," she says in the screechiest of whispers, but it's in vain. She growls as she makes a dash for the door- it'll be extra stupid trying to explain to law enforcement why a crazy man with white hair is outside on Christmas morning racking up multiple counts of indecent exposure.

"Damn it, Soul!" she shouts as she bursts out the apartment building. Frozen air meets her face, and she finds Soul standing barefoot on the sidewalk, looking straight up into the snowing night sky.

His tongue is sticking out.

He sees her out of the corner of his eye. "Wha?" he says, not bothering to put his tongue back in his mouth. He garbles out something that sounds like, "Always wanted to do this, shuddup."

Maka can't bring herself to stop him. She surrenders a laugh, but then notices an oncoming car. Of course there would be someone up at _this_ hour, and driving on _this_ street! Panicked, she quickly moves around Soul to stand in front of him and maybe try to at least block any accidental Marilyn Monroe moments.

She also keeps her back to the street, just in case she's recognized and becomes permanently associated with That Naked Guy in the Ugly Poncho.

...Crap, why does it sound like the car is slowing down?! Just pass! Just drive by and ignore them! Merry Christmas, go away!

She hears the sound of a powered car window rolling down, accompanied by the abrupt shut-off of a purring engine. Even as her gut sinks, she catches a strong whiff of hot chocolate.

"Soul? Is that you?" she hears from behind her, male voice sounding familiar.

The tree-person in question cranes his neck back down to socially appropriate levels and peers over Maka's shoulder at whomever had spoken. She watches Soul beam. "Yep!"

She then hears a loud snap of chewing gum. "Merry Christmas," a female voice joins in. Looking slowly behind her, Maka finds Elizabeth Thompson wryly smiling at her through an open car window, and a man who looks startlingly like Soul leaning forward in the driver's seat to see around her and peer at the both of them standing in the falling snow.

* * *

Wes Evans is only slightly taller than his younger brother, but he doesn't slouch, so the difference seems more dramatic. After a very impromptu family reunion on the sidewalk in front of Maka Albarn's apartment building, Liz explains they were on their way home from the studio after finishing their live broadcast.

She nudges Maka with an elbow. "White n'red for you too, eh?"

Maka blinks, then watches the two brothers interact with each other, exchanging a lot of tree inside-jokes that she isn't sure she wants to understand. "Y-yeah, it kinda turned out that way, didn't it?" Except she hadn't picked red Christmas lights for the tree. The more she thinks about it, and the more she watches Soul Eater laugh with his brother, she becomes positive that Soul had picked the color of his own lights. "The teeth were pretty unexpected." Along with everything else.

Soul remarks suddenly, "Woah. I think I'm _cold_ _."_

Wes loudly laughs and claps his brother on the back. "You're not evergreen anymore, kid."

"What're you guys doing out here anyway?" Liz asks, huddling up in her coat more tightly.

"Well, we _were_ inside, and I was going to ask Tsubaki if she and Black Star had any clothes he could wear, but then he just...ran out here with no pants on and-"

" _HEY_ _SMALLBRANCH_ _!"_

Soul looks around his brother at Black Star and Tsubaki, who've just rounded the corner of the building. "You knothole! Maka's been tryin' to call you for like ten hours!"

"Why in the **hell** are you taller than me? That's cheap!" Black Star complains, punching Soul in the shoulder.

Maka faintly hears Liz say, "Wow, it's pretty hoppin' 'round here at one in the mornin'," but she doesn't reply. She's stuck being aware that she's amidst three supposedly former trees joking around like they've known each other for ages. The situation is surreal.

Tsubaki scoots to Maka's side and says, "Sorry we missed your call. ..Calls. I got a new phone and my number changed. Black Star was helping Mira and Sid with all the support calls at the farm."

Numbly, Maka waves off her friend's apology. She gives her a tired look. "Are you a tree, too?" she pitifully asks.

Tsubaki laughs and shakes her head. "No, I'm afraid I'm completely normal."

Maka looks to Liz. The woman replies blandly with, "Hundred percent human."

She breathes a sigh of relief. "Good, I was beginning to think I was the only normal person."

Black Star overhears this and says, "Whatever, you're like, at most, fifty percent normal."

"Right?" Soul chimes in. "'Cuz she smells like oranges."

While Wes and Black Star nod at this statement, Maka only squints and gives up trying to figure out their little forest of _weird_. "Whatever. Tsubaki, do you have any clothes he can borrow? I don't know what on earth would be open right now."

The tall brunette hesitates. "Um, I'm sure Black Star has some pants, but..."

"Yours is a little shorter than hers," Liz supplies.

Tsubaki tries not to laugh. "Yeah."

"I don't care what he wears, as long as he stops mooning everybody," Maka says, disgruntled.

Liz drawls with an incredulous, _"_ _Why_ _?"_

"It is a very nice butt," Tsubaki quietly adds.

Maka puts her face into her hands.

"That must come standard with pines or somethin'," Liz remarks.

* * *

Somehow, everyone just invites themselves into her tiny apartment. She supposes there's a little more room now that there isn't a tree hogging up the majority of her living room, but now that there's three used-to-be-trees, plus some, it's still not quite enough space for a comfortable trade-off.

Wes and Soul are locked up in her bathroom, the former presumably informing the latter about the less well-known aspects of being a male human being. She hears a lot of sour remarks, most notably a loud 'I know what it's for!'. She tries not to think too hard about it.

Liz leans on the arm of the couch, texting her younger sister to pick up some of Wes's old clothes before coming to visit Maka in the morning, which, as Maka calculates wearily in her head, is in six hours.

As Black Star sits on the floor and sorts through a pile of his own clothes that he is loathe to donate to That Lurpy Bark Fungus, Tsubaki rips out the hem on a pair of pants and says to Maka, "Are you angry with me?"

Maka, sitting on the couch with her legs pulled to her chest, tiredly rests her head on her knees. "What? What for?"

"Well, I _did_ kinda shove Soul at you and didn't tell you anything about him."

Frowning, Maka realizes this is true. Tsubaki really had been in on her having a supernatural Christmas tree, and therefore had helped cause a lot of her stress the past several days.

Tsubaki continues, pulling stray threads from a pant leg. "It was meddlesome of me, and risky, and I'm sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He really wanted to meet you, and I was so tired of seeing you being alone on Christmas and I just assumed that you didn't like it that way, when really, I should have asked first."

Maka breathes deeply, letting out a long sigh. "You should have," she honestly answers. Tsubaki cringes, apologetic. "I thought it was all a psychotic accident. I even called Mira's work number to figure out how to get rid of him once I realized what he was." She hears Liz shift next to her, tuning in on the conversation. "...He kinda grew on me, though. So, I'm not really mad. For now." Maka hugs her legs more tightly to her chest, faintly smiling.

"I'm glad I have company for Christmas this year."

* * *

When all is said and done, Soul is rewarded into humanity with two pairs of baggy basketball shorts, a handful of worn t-shirts, and one pair of still-just-a-little-too-short, flannel sleep pants (which is just as well, because if anything had been the correct length, he probably would've ended up tripping everywhere).

It's late, or extra early, by the time everyone leaves the apartment and says their congratulations and goodbyes and Merry Christmases. Maka thanks them all for their help and advice, seeing the last person- Wes Evans- out the door.

"It was good to meet you, Maka. I trust you'll take good care of my brother," he says with that uncanny, lopsided smile that makes her think all former pine trees have a perverted streak.

Her face warms. "I'll, um, do my best," she bashfully answers.

He laughs, nodding. "Give Liz a call sometime. We'll have to hang out again. G'night you two."

She awkwardly says goodbye and locks the door after him. Finally, she barks out, "WHAT," to Soul's insistent sleeve tugging that has been going on, nonstop, since everyone had started to leave.

"Maka," he says, even though he already has her attention. He leans in closer to her, so his eyes look into hers at a similar height. "Guess what."

"W- **what** , I said," she mumbles, annoyed that he looks like he knows just exactly how obnoxious he's being.

"I have pants on."

She blinks.

"Also, you're on planet Earth, just F-Y-I. Lemme kiss you?"

Maka places her palm over his smirking face and shoves him out of the way. "I am going to bed!" she announces forcefully.

"Aw, okay," he lightly replies. It isn't until she's halfway to her room that she suddenly stops, feet sinking into the carpet. The distinct lack of her heels being dogged causes her to look back.

Soul stands in one place, watching her retreat. "Goodnight, Maka," he says, genuine.

She notes that there is still some paranormal activity going on in her apartment, because her legs carry her grimacing self right back over to her resident weirdo. Or maybe she's the weirdo.

"Are you hungry?" she flatly asks.

Soul's eyebrows furrow. "I don't... think so?"

"Thirsty?"  
"Nope."  
"Do you need anything?"

His eyes flit to her lips a brief moment before he says, "Not really, I'm good."

She has no idea what she's doing- to take the time to fathom her actions would be more absurd than the act itself- and she refuses to understand. Maka reaches for him and grasps his hand and nonchalantly tows him along to her bedroom and does not acknowledge the elated grin on his face, because he shouldn't be this happy, her bed is the only logical place he would sleep (no, it's not, she has a couch, none of this is logical at all), and it's annoying that both he and her thundering heart are making such a huge fuss over this, seriously. Everyone needs to calm down.

Soul climbs into bed with her, messing up her covers. He makes rumbling, satisfied noises as he discovers and approves of her comfortable blankets. "It's warm," he says, pleased.

"Yeah, okay, just stop kicking."  
"Sorry."

She's sharing her bed with someone. A stranger. A stranger in more ways than she can count. Her face is going to melt. But he's already been in her bed before, sort of, when he was even more strange. Or maybe less strange. Arg, she doesn't know anymore!

Still, better safe than sorry. Maka turns on her side to give him a stern glare. "No funny business, got it? I don't wanna wake up with any hands on my boobs."

"This business is completely unfunny," he says, looking too amused to be taken seriously. He yanks her blankets up to his chin like he owns the place and has lived there a million years.

She frowns, but shuts her eyes in determination. Patti will be arriving soon, Maka will have to visit her dad later, and she's still trying to catch up to the idea that self-combusting trees sprout humans- one of which is presently in her bed, and another that has been her tree-cognito friend for the past five years. She's tired. Her brain needs a time out.

Unfortunately, her awareness prickles with the constant sensation of being watched. Her eyes slide open.

"Quit staring."

Soul's eyes flit away. "Accident." They land back on her before she closes her own, again.

Maka glowers.

"I'm too excited to sleep," he explains sheepishly. His fingers gesture around the edge of her blanket. "This is kinda a big deal."

No joke there. An off-the-record human being had spawned out of her tree stand today. "I-I know, but I can't sleep if you're looking at me like that."

He averts his eyes to the ceiling. "I, uh. I can leave, if you want."

"No, you don't have to." After Maka blurts this out much more enthusiastically than she had intended, the both of them carry on in this ridiculous, awkward fashion for awhile:

"Just tell me, and I'll-"  
"I wouldn't have brought you in here if-"  
"Like, I promise not to, uh-"  
"I know! I trust you... mostly. Sort of."  
"Good, 'cuz you shouldn't worry about that and get some sleep-"  
"Well you keep _staring at me!_ "  
"I can't _help_ it, 'cuz when I look at you, there's like a, a, ...here- **"**

Maka squawks loudly when Soul's hand darts under the blanket, finds hers, and proceeds to mash her palm against the front of his shirt (and a really, abnormally-nice-to-feel-up pectoral, gosh). The whole event brings her body closer to him, his earnest eyes inches from hers.

"There's a bird in my chest. **WOW** , that sounds really _stupid_ when I say it out loud," he complains, disgusted and scowling to one side.

Maka looks at the lump in the blankets where her hand rests over Soul's palpitating heart. It flutters rapidly as if trying to escape. She knows what he is trying to say, and it flatters her (a lot), but she frowns.

"I don't get it- how you seem to like me so much already. You don't even know me," she quietly says. She glances at his face, eyeing the lips she knows she has already kissed in some way or another, and knowing that though they may both enjoy making out with each other, the way this tree-man feels about her outshines any feelings she may have for him. It seems cruel, in a way.

"Star talked about you a lot," he says, hand warm over hers.

"I know that, but-"

"Just listen," he interjects. "I... might've started crushing on you a little. Or the idea of you. And then I found you and you were so different than I expected, but then you were like exactly everything Star had said at the same time-"

Maka squints at him, filled with distrust. "Wait, what's that supposed to mean?"

"You're violent, reclusive, temperamental, and you read too much-"

She digs her nails into his shirt in retaliation. "And you were 'crushing' on that stuff _how_?"

Soul winces, but smiles. "And you care 'bout your friends and your old man, even though you try to hide it a lot, and you're thoughtful, and you do kind of sound like a drunk squirrel when you snore-"

" **EXCUSE** **ME** **?!"**

He tries to defend himself from her onslaught of fists while simultaneously laughing. "And! And," he struggles to keep her from pounding on his chest, "even without all that stuff, your heart is kind, Maka."

She freezes with a fist poised in the air, suddenly feeling naked from the way his eyes seem to see straight into her. 'Kind' is a difficult word to process when she's in the middle of beating someone to pulp. She doesn't _feel_ very kind. "What?"

"Well like, even just now, weren't you just worryin' about me having some one-sided feelings?"

Her eyes widen to saucers. "...Can you read minds," she bluntly asks.

He snorts and gives her a lopsided grin that she's already gotten used to. "Naw. If there's anything a Christmas spirit understands best, it's a kind heart. It's pretty much what we're made of, anyway."

As Maka's blush reaches new record temperatures, she says "I figured you were made out of pure perversion."

Soul shrugs, not the least bit in denial. "Might have some of that thrown in too."

Her fist slowly falls, uncurling in defeat. She's not sure what to think about that kindhearted stuff, but she does feel like she should get something off her chest. "Still, about that one-sided thing? I mean, it's not _completely_ like that- I am, um, for various reasons, a-attracted to you," she admits, bowing her head and wanting to disappear under her eyelashes. She can hear Soul's grin growing even wider. "But! I wasn't even sure you weren't a hallucination until last night, and... I don't really know you. So I don't... I'm not-"

"It's cool, Maka," he says. His deep voice is reassuring. "Don't even worry about it."

This situation feels like she is trying to gently let down Soul's tree-crush feelings, but this is not exactly the case, and she rubs her face to get her thoughts together. And also to not get sucked in to Soul Eater's warm gaze. "I just need some time to get used to everything, that's all."

Seemingly deciding that no response is needed, Soul only blinks and watches her expression. Maka wonders if his heart is still thumping against his ribcage like hers is. She finds out for herself, ignoring his bewildered face as she maneuvers one of his arms out of her way so she can rest her head on the blanket covering his chest.

His muffled heart is trying to fly. She asks, "Trees are good at staying in one place, right?" Eventually, she feels his arm slowly wrap around behind her, a hand firmly cupping her shoulder.

He replies with a hum. "Yeah. Roots go deep."

And she thinks Soul Eater will give her all the time she needs, and will be there when she wakes up.

 

 

* * *

* * *

Her bed is empty when she wakes up.

It's a quarter after ten in the morning, and Maka Albarn can't decide if the muddled images in her head are memories or dreams. She wonders where Blair is. What day is it? She's probably late for work.

But she hears giggling coming from across her apartment, and everything snaps into place. She gulps a breath of air and tumbles out of her bed.

Maka shuffles into her living room on what is left of Christmas morning, and sees Patricia Thompson smiling with an orange rind, the peel covering all her teeth. Soul snorts, popping a segment of his own orange in his mouth. That's when he notices Maka's arrival, and says, "Oh!"

Patti bursts into a flurry of movement, hurriedly trying to re-wrap a large fruit basket, and places this and a small gift bag at Soul's bare feet. "Okay, do it, do it!" she says excitedly.

Standing up tall and straight, Soul stuffs the remainder of his orange between his shark-like teeth and opens his arms wide, holding them out to his sides. "Ta-daaaaa," he garbles around his food. Both he and Patti look at Maka, expectant.

Well, she can at least confirm that everything hadn't been a dream. "What. Are you doing..?"

"I'm the tree," Soul insists, as if it should be obvious.

"Oh, wait," Patti blurts, and reaches for the gift-wrapped giraffe and puts this amongst the other gifts at Soul's feet. Then she elbows Soul in the stomach. "Say it!"

He blinks, but then must realize what the girl is talking about, because he pulls the orange from his mouth and gives Maka a bright grin. "Merry Christmas in my pants!" To Maka's murderous glare, he defends with, "I got new pants though, from Wes," as if he isn't actually aware of every innuendo that comes out of his mouth.

When Maka rounds this glare off to Patti, who should not be adding fuel to the perverse fire (and at her age!), the girl only says, "Can we open the presents now? Please please please ple-"

"Well, we kinda opened one already," Soul admits guiltily.

"I made the executive decision that he should learn how to eat food. He rilly likes oranges!"  
"You're changing colors again, Maka."

One livingroom-slash-sea of used wrapping paper from a giraffe de-mummification process later, and Patti sheds some light as Soul tries to peel another orange. "Yeeeah, I kinda knew what was up during the party. Tsubaki told me everything."

Maka doesn't know what kind of face she should make at this point- she's been through so many levels of shock and dismay over the past week that she simply can't find the energy to be surprised. "So that's why you didn't make a big deal over that picture I sent."

"Ahaha, well, that and Sis's boyfriend. Though **I** **didn** **'** **t** **know** **they** **were** **related** **,** **that** **is** **so** **COOL** **-** " Patti blurts.

Soul's head whips up from his hands and says, "I know, right?"

Patti turns back to Maka and continues her excited rambling. "That makes you like my sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend which means _we_ _are_ _officially_ _sisters_ _,_ _madam_ _!"_

Maka fumbles with the wrapping paper she is trying to gather up in a ball. "W-wait, girlfri- I, what?" First off, she's pretty sure there is no word in any human language that can possibly define whatever 'relationship' she may or may not be in with a tree-turned-human, and secondly, she's pretty sure that any relationship short of marriage doesn't magically grant her any siblings-in-law. Still, she finds herself blushing, and a little pleased. "Sisters?"

She's always wanted a sister!

Despite having only announced their new family status, Patti brushes off Maka's surprise like it's already old news, and energetically moves on to the main event. "Thank you for my present it is the most awesomest giraffe and I will name him Mister Twigs, just for you. Annnnd **here** **-"** She scoots forward the half-open basket of assorted fruit. "This is from Kid. Er. The boss. Whatevs. And THIS IS FROM ME."

Trying to keep abreast of Patti's rapid fire commentary, Maka automatically clings to the gift bag that the girl shoves at her. It occurs to her that this is the first time in a long time that she has woken up on Christmas day to open up a present next to a (sort-of) tree, and Maka doesn't try too hard to dislodge the happy little knot of excitement in her chest. She reaches through tissue paper and grasps something soft and woolen.

"I present to you," Patti announces as Maka pulls out a purple and fluffy blob, "the longest scarf, _in_ the history of mankind!" The younger blonde looks so pleased with herself that Maka fears soul will have some competition over having the most self-satisfied, confident smirk imaginable. "You can thank me by wearing it immediately."

So, over her pyjamas, Maka laughs while wrapping the scarf around her neck a few times. "It's very comfy and perfect. Thank you."

Patti beams at her, and then her attention rivets onto Soul. "I didn't know about you til last Friday, buuuut I gotchu a little sumpin-sumpin," she says, digging into a pocket of her winter coat and producing a small box which holds a toy of some kind. Soul accepts the gift a lot more carefully than the way Patti casually hands it over, and Maka realizes this is his first Christmas gift.

"Oh, uh. Thanks," he murmurs. It's not wrapped, and Soul Eater peers through the little cellophane window on the front of the box. "It's a ...flower?" He squints, unsure what to do about this development.

Patti waves her hand like she had expected this from the start. "Take it out and hold it in the sun."

He blinks a moment, then scuttles to a window, the sounds of him fiddling with the lid of the box trailing after him.

Maka tries to figure out just what Patti had given him, but Soul's back is turned as he stands at a small window, head tilted down to his hands. Her attention is then drawn by Patti grabbing one end of her ridiculously long scarf. The girl begins to tie a big loop with it.

"Look, this is how it works. You knot it here- are you payin' attention?"  
"What are you doing to it?"

"See, now it's like this? Then you can _throw_ _it_ _over_ _his_ _head_ _and_ _lasso_ _him_ _,"_ Patti hisses at her.

"What?! No! Why would I want- stop smiling like that, you are not allowed to be perverted yet!"

Patti straightens the collar of her jacket. "Please, compared to Sis, I'm an angel."

Before Maka can make a counter argument (which is, granted, hard to do, after all of Elizabeth's comments about butts earlier this morning), Soul blurts from the window, **"** **It** **'** **s** **dancing** **,"** like he's not sure what to make of such a remarkable event. He turns around to face the two young women, a solar-powered, plastic flower in a tiny pot wiggling back and forth in the sun. He looks as if he's applying a large amount of willpower to act stoic about the dancing toy and not be hilariously excited about it.

"It's a dancing. _Plant_ _._ " He presses his lips into a barely contained smile. Maka tries just as hard to not giggle at how enamored he is over the thing.

Patti is less lenient. "It's awesome, right?!"

Soul's shoulders hunch up a little bit, cheeks tinting. He nods once. The girl grins evily.

"Isn't it **cute?"**

Maka laughs into her hand at how physically pained he looks trying to keep the strangled 'Yeeess' bottled up.

"Ehehehe." Patti wraps an arm around her giraffe's neck and slings the other around Maka's. "Welp! I gots to be going or I'm gonna be late to lunch. You should probably get ready for your thing too, right?"

Blinking, Maka gasps. "Oh no! What time is it? Arg, I'm still in my pajamas!"

* * *

She hadn't actually anticipated bringing anyone with her to her father's, but seeing Soul standing in the middle of her living room surrounded by orange peels and wrapping paper made something in her lungs constrict, and she'd brought him along, claiming that she didn't want him unleashing havoc while she was gone. In truth, it had more to do with personally knowing exactly what it felt like being alone in her apartment on Christmas.

She gives Soul a skeptical look when she sees he's brought the little solar flower into the car. He admits that he didn't want to leave it by itself. She ceremoniously sticks it on the dashboard and watches it happily sway back and forth while Soul figures out the seat belt.

He doesn't lean back into the seat, but sits forward, looking out the front window with interest as she drives.

"So when do I get to drive one of these things?"

"Uhhh, let's work on getting you down the stairs without having a freakout first, alright?"  
"I was _not_ freaking out, okay? Knees are just weird and...stuff."

Maka smiles as she stops at a red light. "I never figured trees to be afraid of heights."

"It's not heights." Soul huffs and pokes at the air vents in the dashboard with one hand as the other carefully holds on to the pumpkin pie in his lap. "The taller you are, the longer the fall," he grumbles. And then a loud motorcycle pulls up in the lane next to him. "Wha- What is THAT?"

Grimacing at the loud noise from the bike's engine, Maka says, displeased, "A Harley-Davidson. Why?"

The light turns green and the motorcycle accelerates past them as she shifts her car into second gear. Her passenger watches the rider fly ahead and change lanes. Maka's eyes cut between watching the road and witnessing Soul's eyes light up like stars.

"Don't tell me you want a-"  
" **So** **.** _ **Cool**_ _ **."**_

She groans, making the turn for her father's street. She carefully drives around a multitude of parked cars- someone else on the street must be having a gathering or something- and parks in Spirit's driveway. She's still not sure how she will handle her father, because she _is_ sure how he will handle seeing his daughter bringing a man with her to Christmas. A man that looks like he's from outer space and is ready to make _very_ good friends with her.

Add this on top of the fact that the last time she'd been here on Christmas, she and her mother had still lived here. When Soul comments on what must be her obvious state of nervous dread, she realizes her hands haven't left the steering wheel and are trying to choke it to death. "Like I said, I promise I'll be the most well-behaved human he's ever seen. ...Unless he gripes 'bout my posture again. Or threatens me. Or looks at me wrong."

Maka makes a helpless noise because all those things are pretty guaranteed. She pries her hands away from the steering wheel and thumps her head on it instead. In the silence, she can hear the little whirring of the tiny machine that makes the flower continue its swaying on the dashboard.

"...I didn't get him a present," she laments.

Soul scoffs. "You make things way harder than they have to be."

Maka sits upright and gives him a haggard look. "I'm serious! It's my first Christmas at home in a long time and I didn't even get Papa a present- like what kind of daughter does that? I'm a disgrace!"

He only rolls his eyes and unbuckles his seat belt. "Come on, let's go. If you get any more gloomy you're gonna turn into fungus," he chides as he exits the car with the pie in hand.

"I'm not a fungus," she pouts, slightly offended, and Soul shuts his door in response.

Walking over to her side of the car, he gives her a pointed, emoticon-like face, stooping over to see her through the window. Behind her, the little flower dances, its internal gears steadily _whir_ _-_ _whirring_ , reminding her that time is ticking and she probably shouldn't be hiding in her car on Papa's driveway.

When she stands out of her car, boots planted firmly on the pavement, she takes a big breath to settle her nerves. Glancing at Soul, she notes the way he sways slightly as he slouches and looks at her is so strangely tree-like that it tickles her brain a little. He gives her a lopsided smile and lets her silently take the pie from him.

"I told you before- you already know what you gotta do."

Maka looks into the slightly cracked filling through the plastic wrapped over the top of the pumpkin pie, and comes to terms with the fact that she is accepting emotional advice from someone who had been a pine tree for the past thirty-something years.

"It's Christmas, Maka. And I'm pretty sure this one's not like any of the others you've seen, yeah?"

She tilts her head up at this, unable to stop the wry smile. "That's one way to sugarcoat it." She could not have anticipated the past forty-eight hours to save her life, and wonders how any other holiday will ever compare afterwards.

Maka teaches him how to hold out an elbow for her to thread her arm around, and as he smiles broadly on their way to the front door of her childhood home, she finally understands what Soul Eater had been trying to say.

She'll make this Christmas different. It'll just take a little courage.

And really, if she can handle a paranormal pine or three, being home for Christmas will be cake.

Between the second and third knocks she gives the front door, Soul remarks in a low pitch, _"_ _There_ _it_ _is_ _."_

Hand still poised in the air, she asks, "Where's what?"

The look he gives is warm, and she breathes in a faint wisp of cinnamon. "You should smile more," he murmurs.

If her blood's temperature climbs any higher, Maka thinks steam will start curling off her blushing face. She's grateful of the distraction of the opening door, but is also worried that her habit of slowly gravitating towards Soul's mouth is horribly obvious. She pulls away from him to a respectable distance while still hanging on his arm, and flashes her brightest smile to Tsubaki Nakatsukasa.

"Hi Tsubaki," she says a little too loud, "Merry Chr- W-what?! Tsubaki? What're you...?"

Tsubaki cheerily wishes them both Merry Christmas and gleefully eyes their connected arms.

* * *

"Man, one leg and I get a skirt, two legs and now I gotta wear pants. It's laaaaame," Soul complains after Wes asks him how he likes being able to walk around freely.

"Those are at least better than the ones this guy left you with."

Black Star reflexively barks back, "Okay, I'm _short_ , we get it!"

Everyone is in her papa's house. Her godfather, Stein, sips coffee on the rarely-used couch, nodding his head slightly as he intently listens to Mira Nygus talk about her work. Maka's boss, Kid, sits frozen in a recliner, unsure what to do with Blair jumping in his lap. Sid Barett pulls Patti aside to speak with her about stopping by the tree farm, seeing as she's been working with potted plants and arrangements, and has a knack for the paranormal. Liz is too far out of earshot for Maka to catch what she is saying to Tsubaki, but by the cheesy grins on both women's faces, Maka assumes the subject is perverted, and probably about rear ends.

The tree-trio- Soul, Wes, and Black Star- smile and attempt to casually wear jingly reindeer antlers like it's the most normal thing in the world. Squinting suspiciously in their direction, and wearing his own pair of antlers, Spirit Albarn drums his fingers on the disposable cup of eggnog in his hand.

Maka finds herself hovering around her father. She had anticipated trying to keep him at a comfortable distance to avoid being smothered to death by random hugs, but she inches closer to his side voluntarily, worrying he will try to snap Soul Eater in half for existing.

She tries to break the situation to him gently without giving away that Soul used to be a plant. This process somehow equates to putting a question mark at the end of every statement. "I know he's strange, but, well, he's kinda living with me now?"

The plastic cup pops slightly in Spirit's disgruntled grasp.

"And, um, I might be dating him later so, if you could maybe not kill him? That would be very nice of you?"

Her father takes a stiff sip of his eggnog. Maka attempts to change the subject. "I didn't know you were gonna invite everybody. I would've made another pie."

At this, Spirit finally tears his eyes away from his target and glances at the pumpkin pie in her hands. "When you told me you were coming, I got kinda excited," he says sheepishly. "Though, I only invited Stein and your neighbors... That Tsubaki asked to bring along a few friends and then," Spirit waves his hand across the expanse of his crowded house, "this happened."

'This' seeming very much like a Tsubaki-thing to do, Maka laughs at her friends milling about the living room. She smiles broadly at the unsure look Spirit gives her. It's hard not to, when she's in a warm, full house. "It's a wonderful surprise, Papa. I'm really glad I came," she says, and he beams back.

"Let's get that masterpiece in the fridge."

Once in the kitchen, the commotion in the living room diminishes, muffled. She stands next to the refrigerator, watching as Spirit tries to make room for the pie. The appliance has come to be a lot more grandly stocked with food since she'd last seen it. She recognizes some of Tsubaki's signature crowd-pleasers.

"Sorry I didn't bring you anything but this, Dad," she quietly admits when he's half-inside the fridge, rearranging casseroles. "I don't have a gift for you."

He takes the time to carefully take the pie from her hands and places it in the refrigerator, but neglects to shut the door in his hurry to envelop her in a firm hug. Maka's nose tingles with peppermint that transports her to a different year and age.

"You're the best gift I've ever been given, Maka."

She huffs into his familiar shirt. Leave it to Papa to say the cheesiest things possible. Still, she sinks more deeply into his embrace.

" _..._ _your_ _father_ _cherishes_ _you_ _more_ _than_ _anything_ _in_ _the_ _world_ _."_

A moment of this, and she hears him sniffling.

"...Are you crying," she asks flatly.

"Wh- no, it smells like- **the** **goose** **!"**

She's nearly spun out of his arms as he slams the refrigerator door and yanks open the oven, forced to waft away the tendrils of smoke that greet him. "Goose? I thought you were just gonna cook a chicken? Is it on fire?"

"Whew! Some of the juice spilled and smoked, it's fine," he says, relieved. Pot holder in one hand and dishtowel in the other, he retrieves the roasting pan from the oven. "Your friends wanted to surprise you and... Ow! Tssk. So I needed more food. Can't have people starving on Christmas!"

Maka hunts through a drawer for a baster and hands this to him. He really is a Christmas Spirit, she muses, smiling helplessly. A kind heart, who invites 'punk-asses' into his house for the holiday.

"Papa," she says as he bastes juices over the roasted goose.

"Hm?"

"Papa, are you a tree?" she hears her voice ask.

Wait. What? She'd wanted to ask if he needed help setting the table. But somewhere, in the back of her mind, everything had pointed her in this random direction, and she'd been thinking about how he's stayed in one place for so long and waited for her to come around, because _roots_ _go_ _deep_ , and the question just popped out of her mouth without any conscious effort. The idea is absurd. There's no way that's possible.

But he smells like peppermint and mint gum and candy canes when he's happy, and she can't help but notice how his eyes twinkle when he smiles, and his hair is too bright of a red to be normal, and he's _needy_ and _attention_ _-_ _seeking_ _-_

(and his daughter is, at most, fifty percent normal)

(and his daughter's nickname, when it's not 'Grinch', is 'Twiggy')

Spirit gives her a hesitant smile, which warms into something like pride.

* * *

She has a long talk with him after everyone but Soul takes their leave. She learns a few things about her father, her mother, and herself. There's a lot she still can't accept easily- like Spirit's penchant for hitting on anything that moves, and her mother's inability to stay in one place for very long- but it feels relieving to know the story, even if it's too difficult to digest all at once.

The important thing is that Papa is with her, and he will never go too far from her, because they are rooted together. And now she has Soul, in whatever way that may mean, who she believes can support her in her lowest moments when others can not.

After giving her father a tight hug, she makes her way to her personal slice of forest, who presently sleeps off the first real meal (feast, really) he's ever had, sprawled across Spirit's couch.

Her father frowns but says nothing, and returns to eating the last of the pumpkin pie directly from the dish as Maka quietly kneels and gives Soul Eater the faintest of kisses.

She leans away, still crouched next to him, watching as he groggily wakes after a few seconds. His fingers fumble to his lips, and Maka smiles to herself. See how _he_ likes waking up from a kiss he's not sure is real!

Red lights focus on her. "Did you just-?"

She blinks once.

Soul smirks a little but tries to hide it with a wide yawn and a stretch. "You smell good," he greets. "Like oranges."

"Let's go home," she says, heart growing a few sizes.

(Because orange is his favorite, just like cider is hers.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS on FFn there's a decent length omake floating around. Slice of life + NSFW called [caller number one](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8829847/1/Caller-Number-One).


End file.
